Dina Wadia | |
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 Dina with her father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in 1930 | |
| Born | Dina Jinnah (1919-08-15)15 August 1919 London, England |
| Died | 2 November 2017(2017-11-02) (aged 98) New York City, United States |
| Citizenship | British Indian (1919 - 1947) Indian (1947-1955) American (1955-2017) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, inc.Nusli Wadia |
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| Family | |
Dina Wadia (née Jinnah; 15 August 1919 – 2 November 2017) was a British born Indian-American who was the only daughter ofMuhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and his second wife,Rattanbai Petit. Born inLondon, she grew up in an influential and politically active family. Herpaternal family was ofGujarati heritage, while hermaternal family wasParsi.
Wadia's early years were shaped by personal loss, including the death of her mother when she was young, after which she was raised by her aunt,Fatima Jinnah. She received her education in bothIndia andEngland. Despite her father's significant role in thecreation of Pakistan, Wadia maintained a relatively private life and chose to live inBombay following thepartition of India after which she acquiredIndian citizenship.[1] She had also spent time in London before settling inNew York City later in life.[2] She marriedNeville Wadia, a Bombay-based businessman, in 1938 and had two children:Nusli Wadia and Diana Wadia.
On 2 November 2017, she died at the age of 98 frompneumonia in her New York City home.
Dina Jinnah was born shortly after midnight on 15 August 1919 inLondon.[3] HistorianStanley Wolpert notes that her birth was "precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour beforethe birth of Jinnah's other offspring, Pakistan."[4] Her arrival was unexpected as her parents were at the cinema at the time.[5] She was named after Lady Dinabai Petit, her maternal grandmother, who raised her.[n 1][6][7][8][9] Her parents,Muhammad Ali Jinnah andRattanbai Jinnah, had separated but later reunited during her mother's illness.[10]
Jinnah'spaternal family were upstart merchants of high social status. Her paternal grandfather,Jinnahbhai Poonja, had moved fromGondal toKarachi in the mid-1870s.[11][12] They were GujaratiKhojas, descendants of theLohana caste, who had converted fromHinduism to theIsmaili sect ofIslam and were followers theAga Khan.[13][14] Her father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a lawyer and the leader of theAll-India Muslim League, which called for aseparate Muslim homeland following the end ofBritish rule in India.[11][8]
Jinnah'smaternal family were rich, well-educated and westernized. They wereParsis who traditionally followedZoroastrianism. Her great-grandfather,Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, founded the first cotton mill in India and earned abaronetcy for his contributions to industry, trade, and philanthropy.[15] Her mother, Rattanbai Petit, was the only child of Sir Dinshaw Petit. Rattanbai converted to Islam to marry Muhammad Ali Jinnah on 19 April 1918, resulting in a permanent estrangement from her family and Parsi society.[16][17]
In 1929, Jinnah's mother, Rattanbai, died when she was only 9 years old. That year, Jinnah moved to London with her father and aunt,Fatima Jinnah, who raised her as a Muslim,[18] teaching her theQuran andsalah.[1] She was educated in a convent boarding school inPanchgani and a private school inSussex.[19] Jinnah affectionately nicknamed her father "Grey Wolf" after his admiration for the biographyGrey Wolf: An Intimate Study of a Dictator on the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk onMustafa Kemal Atatürk's life.[20][21]
My darling Papa,
First of all, I must congratulate you – we have got Pakistan, that is to say the principal has been accepted. I am so proud and happy for you – how hard you have worked for it...
I do hope you are keeping well – I get lots of news of you from the newspapers. The children are just recovering fromwhooping cough, it will take another month yet.
I am taking them toJuhu on Thursday for a month or so. Are you coming back here? If so, I hope you will drive out to Juhu and spend the day, if you like. Anyway, I have a phone, so I will ring you up and drive in to see you if you don’t feel like coming out.
Take care of yourself Papa darling. Lots of love & kisses,
Dina[22]
On 16 November 1938, Wadia married Parsi businessmanNeville Wadia, from the prominentWadia family, atAll Saints' Church.[n 2] Although Jinnah himself had an inter-faith marriage, he expected Wadia to marry a Muslim, which led to a strained relationship between them.[24] He was not in attendance at the wedding ceremony.[25] In an interview withAkbar Ahmed, she said that "he was very disapproving, and we didn’t speak for a few years."[26]
M. C. Chagla recounted in his autobiographyRoses in December that when Dina married Neville, her father said to her that she was not his daughter anymore. This story, however, is contentious as some[who?] say that Jinnah had sent a bouquet through his driver, Abdul Hai, to the newly married couple.[27] Their relationship was a matter of legal conjecture as Pakistani laws allow for a person to be disinherited for violating Islamic rules (in this case by a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim), and hence no claim of hers was entertained on the Pakistani properties of Jinnah.[28]
Following the marriage, the father-daughter relationship became extremely formal, and he addressed her formally as 'Mrs. Wadia'. This, too, is contentious as Dina rebuffed this information calling it a rumour.[27][29] In an interview withHamid Mir, she said: "My father was not a demonstrative man, but he was an affectionate father. My last meeting with him took place inBombay in 1946. When I was about to depart, my father hugged Nusli (who was two years old then). The grey cap (Jinnah was wearing) caught Nusli’s fancy, and in a moment, my father put it on Nusli’s head, saying, 'Keep it my boy.'"[1][27][30] After Dina's death, her personal diary revealed that her relationship with her father was no more formal, and they had reunited as a family.[31]
The couple resided in Bombay and had two children,Nusli and Diana.[32] They separated in 1943,[33][31] after which Wadia moved to New York City.[34]
Wadia was living in an apartment inMadison Avenue. Despite physical distance, Nusli spoke to Wadia every day.[25] In a 2002 interview with historian Andrew Whitehead, Wadia stated that although she had been invited to Pakistan multiple times, including byBenazir Bhutto, she declined these invitations, expressing concerns about being used as amascot. She also warned thatdemocracy had not been successfully established in any Muslim country and criticized leaders whom she accused of having 'robbed' the nation.[35] In March 2004, Wadia along with her son and grandsons visited theMazar-e-Quaid andMadar-i-Millat to pay respects to her father and aunt, respectively. In addition, she watched the lastOne Day International betweenPakistan andIndia inLahore.[36] In a 2008 interview withTimes of India, Indian actressPreity Zinta, who met Wadia several times, stated: "She carries an aura of unmistakable strength."[37]
Wadia was involved in a legal dispute over the ownership of herfather's house in Bombay, which she referred to as 'South Court'. Built in 1936, the house had been ultimately classified as evacuee property in 1948 like other property left bymuhajirs following independence.[38] Until 1982, it was leased to the British Deputy High Commission, and in 2007,Pervez Musharraf requested that it be converted into Pakistan'sconsulate.[39] In August of that year, Wadia filed a petition before theBombay High Court, claiming to be the rightful heir underHindu law (which applied to Khojas). Although the court determined that Fatima Jinnah was the heir in Jinnah's will, Wadia contested this, arguing that Fatima had been declared an evacuee and was therefore ineligible to legally own property in India and the house should be transferred to Jinnah's legal heir, herself. In response, the Union government claimed the petition was not maintainable and was barred after an unexplained delay.[40][41]
At the age of 98, Wadia died frompneumonia in her New York City apartment on 2 November 2017. The private funeral was held in New York, with Pakistan's consulate sending the family four bouquets, signed byShahid Khaqan Abbasi,Khawaja Asif,Mamnoon Hussain andAizaz Ahmad Chaudhry.[42] In a statement, Abbasi and Hussain said that she was "greatly respected and admired".[43][44] Political leaders including,Naz Baloch,Imran Khan,Shah Mehmood Qureshi andShahbaz Sharif expressed their condolences.[45]Marriyum Aurangzeb described her as "the last symbol of our leader and nation’s founder".[46] Preity Zinta tweeted “I was fortunate enough to have met her and really admired her.”[47] TheSindh Assembly held aminute of silence in her remembrance and offered prayers for her and her father.[48] Andrew Whitehead remarked that "the last remaining link with South Asia's independence era leaders has been broken."[35]
Ms Wadia, who moved to New York after divorcing her husband, divides her time between New York, London and Mumbai, where her son Nusli runs one of India's largest textile companies.
Dina and Neville lived in Mumbai and had two children, a boy and a girl, before the couple divorced.
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