Dina Wadia, R.I.P.
Extracted from The Times, London: “Matriarch of a business empire who fell out with her father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and moved to New York … the reclusive Dina Wadia stunned those who met her because of her resemblance to her father … she kept a photograph of him on her desk. Yet father and daughter had fallen out spectacularly in 1938 when she had married a wealthy Parsi who had converted to Christianity. And it was history repeating itself. When Jinnah had married Ruttie Petit, a socialite half his age, in 1918 it had scandalized Indian and British society … he was 42 and a Muslim; she was 18 and a wealthy Parsi heiress. Ruttie converted to Islam to marry Jinnah, and was disowned by her parents. Years later, when Dina announced her decision to marry Neville Wadia, a British born, Cambridge educated heir to a textile fortune, her father was furious. ‘There are millions of Muslim boys in India’, he told her, and she could marry anyone she chose. Dina replied, ‘Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?’ Mr Jinnah did not attend the wedding … Dina later mended her relationship with her father, describing him as ‘affectionate but undemonstrative’ … when Jinnah won his long struggle to found Pakistan in 1947, it was his daughter he was said to have rung with the words, ‘we’ve got it!’ … (after Ruttie’s death from cancer) ‘Dina was (Jinnah’s) sole comfort’ … in June 1947, she wrote to him: ‘it is wonderful what you have achieved … I feel so proud and happy for you. You have been … a realist, an honest and brilliant tactician – this letter is sounding like fan mail, isn’t it?’ … Dina came to her father’s funeral in Pakistan … although she separated from her husband, they never divorced … they had two children, Diana and Nusli, who now runs the Wadia Group and is one of India’s richest businessmen … in 2004, she visited her father’s mausoleum. On leaving, she wrote in the visitor’s book: ‘May his dream for Pakistan come true’. Dina Wadia died on Nov 2, 2017.