Dina Wadia
Dina Wadia was the only daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and his second wife, Rattanbai Petit. Born in London, she grew up in an influential and politically active family. Her paternal family was of Gujarati heritage, while her maternal family was Parsi.
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 both India and England. Despite her father's significant role in the creation of Pakistan, Wadia maintained a relatively private life and chose to live in Bombay following the partition of India after which she acquired Indian citizenship. She had also spent time in London before settling in New York City later in life. She married Neville 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 from pneumonia in her New York City home.
Early life
Dina Jinnah was born shortly after midnight on 15 August 1919 in London. Historian Stanley Wolpert notes that her birth was "precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah's other offspring, Pakistan." Her arrival was unexpected as her parents were at the cinema at the time. She was named after Lady Dinabai Petit, her maternal grandmother, who raised her. Her parents, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Rattanbai Jinnah, had separated but later reunited during her mother's illness.Jinnah's paternal family were upstart merchants of high social status. Her paternal grandfather, Jinnahbhai Poonja, had moved from Gondal to Karachi in the mid-1870s. They were Gujarati Khojas, descendants of the Lohana caste, who had converted from Hinduism to the Ismaili sect of Islam and were followers the Aga Khan. Her father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a lawyer and the leader of the All-India Muslim League, which called for a separate Muslim homeland following the end of British rule in India.
Jinnah's maternal family were rich, well-educated and westernized. They were Parsis who traditionally followed Zoroastrianism. Her great-grandfather, Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, founded the first cotton mill in India and earned a baronetcy for his contributions to industry, trade, and philanthropy. 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.
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, teaching her the Quran and salah. She was educated in a convent boarding school in Panchgani and a private school in Sussex. Jinnah affectionately nicknamed her father "Grey Wolf" after his admiration for the biography Grey Wolf: An Intimate Study of a Dictator on the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's life.
Marriage, rift with father and reconciliation
On 16 November 1938, Wadia married Parsi businessman Neville Wadia, from the prominent Wadia family, at All Saints' Church. Although Jinnah himself had an inter-faith marriage, he expected Wadia to marry a Muslim, which led to a strained relationship between them. He was not in attendance at the wedding ceremony. In an interview with Akbar Ahmed, she said that "he was very disapproving, and we didn’t speak for a few years."M. C. Chagla recounted in his autobiography Roses 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 say that Jinnah had sent a bouquet through his driver, Abdul Hai, to the newly married couple. Their relationship was a matter of legal conjecture as Pakistani laws allow for a person to be disinherited for violating Islamic rules, and hence no claim of hers was entertained on the Pakistani properties of Jinnah.
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. In an interview with Hamid Mir, she said: "My father was not a demonstrative man, but he was an affectionate father. My last meeting with him took place in Bombay in 1946. When I was about to depart, my father hugged Nusli. The grey cap caught Nusli’s fancy, and in a moment, my father put it on Nusli’s head, saying, 'Keep it my boy.'" 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.
The couple resided in Bombay and had two children, Nusli and Diana. They separated in 1943, after which Wadia moved to New York City.