Dina Wadia
Dina (Deenbai) Wadia is the daughter of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founding father of Pakistan.
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Early life
She (Dina) was born in London shortly after midnight on August 14-15 in 1919 "oddly enough", in Stanley Wolpert's words, "precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah's other offspring, Pakistan". Her arrival was signaled when her parents, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Ruttie Jinnah were in a theatre "but they were obliged to leave their box hurriedly". There is another reference to Dina in Wolpert's "Jinnah of Pakistan" from the period that the Quaid spent in London in 1930-33, "the least political years" of his adult life.
"Dina was his sole comfort, but Dina was away at school most of the time and home only for brief holidays. She was a dark-eyed beauty, lithe and winsome. She had her mother's smile and was pert or petulant as only an adored, pampered daughter could be to her doting father. He had two dogs, one formidable black Doberman, the other a white West Highland Terrier".
In the same paragraph, Wolpert writes: "In November of 1932, Jinnah read H.C. Armstrong's life of Kemal Ataturk, Grey Wolf, and seemed to have found his own reflection in the story of Turkey's great modernist leader. It was all he talked about for a while at home, even to Dina who nicknamed him 'Grey Wolf'. Being only thirteen, her way of cajolingly pestering him to take her to High Road to see Punch and Judy, who surfaced in Hampstead every Sunday, was, 'Come on, Grey Wolf, take me to a pantomime; after all, I am on my holidays'."The time was a blissful one spent in London. But they later grew apart, Dina never joined her father in Pakistan. She came to Karachi only for his funeral.
Rifts with her father
Mr. Qutbuddin Aziz in his book Jinnah & Islam wrote the following:
- "Jinnah’s chauffeur during his London years (1930-35) Bradbury, told me in London in 1984 that Jinnah went to a mosque in East London for Eid prayers and many Muslims visited him in his Hampstead home to greet him on Eid. He asked his sister, Fatima, to teach her niece, Dina (Jinnah’s only daughter) about Islam and the holy Qur'an. … According to Bradbury, pork and ham were not served in the Jinnah home in Hampstead."
The relationship was marred by the fact that Dina wanted to marry a Parsi-born Christian, Neville Wadia. Jinnah tried to dissuade her, just like Sir Dinshaw had tried to influence his daughter many years ago, but to no avail. Justice Chagla recalls, " Jinnah, in his usual imperious manner, told her that there were millions of Muslim boys in India, and she could have anyone she chose. Then the young lady…replied: 'Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?'"
The relationship became formal after she married. They did correspond, he addressed her formally as 'Mrs. Wadia'. Dina and Neville lived in Bombay and had two children, a boy and a girl. Shortly after that they separated.
Religious differences
Jinnah married a Parsi - Zoroastrian Persians who settled in India.
Dina's son Nusli Wadia born a Christian, decided to convert back to Zoroastrianism settling back into the industrially wealthy Parsi community of Bombay.
Jinnah Mansion dispute
Pakistan's claim to the Jinnah House in Mumbai may never be accepted because of a counter-claim by the founder of the nation's ageing daughter, Dina Wadia, and her millionaire son, Nusli Wadia.
During his visit to India, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had renewed Pakistan's claim to the house which was built by the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1936 when he returned to Bombay from England to take charge of the Muslim League. The president had suggested to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that it should be given to Pakistan so that it could be turned into a consulate. But Dina Wadia (who lives in New York), wrote to the Indian prime minister demanding that the house on the Malabar Hill, now worth $15 million, be given to her.
According to The Observer, London, the daughter of the Quaid-i-Azam, and his grandson, Nusli Wadia, who lives in Mumbai, have made it very clear to the Indian government that they consider Pakistan's claim to the house "inappropriate".
Nusli Wadia said: "Jinnah's house has absolutely nothing to do with Pakistan. It was my grandfather's personal residence and one that he loved dearly. How does that involve Pakistan?" According to the newspaper, Nusli had recently hinted that his grandfather, who believed in democracy, would be less than delighted at the way Pakistan had turned out.
The daughter and the grandson's claim to the historical house was endorsed by the ultra-nationalist Hindu Shiv Sena leader, Bal Thackeray, who predictably has said: "Today they (Pakistan) are asking for the Jinnah House. Tomorrow they may want Taj Mahal and the day after Qutub Minar." The house was built by a British architect, Claude Batley, a Muslim contractor, a Hindu plumber and Italian stone masons. The total cost in 1936 had come to Rs 200,000. The two and a half acre (10,000 m²) property, overlooking the sea, is at a prime location, and in 1948 was leased to the British High Commission which occupied it till 1982. Indian government sources say that the claim by the Quaid's heirs will be treated sympathetically" and have no intention of handing it to Pakistan.'
Present times
In March of 2004, Dina came to Lahore, Pakistan to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and India. Wearing her father's features on her face, Dina Wadia came to Pakistan to watch cricket, taken as one of the many enthralling dimensions of the "cricket diplomacy" that has illustrated an entirely new phase in relations between India and Pakistan. But she and her son Nusli Wadia chose not to share their thoughts with the public on what was certainly a highly emotional encounter. Dina had not visited Pakistan since her father's funeral in September 1948 till now. A great sense of drama was embedded in an old woman's visit, as a foreigner, to a country that was founded by her father.
In the visitors' book, Dina wrote: "This has been very sad and wonderful for me. May his dream for Pakistan come true" .This would appear to be a very appropriate summation of an experience that is essentially inexplicable. Reports said that she asked for copies of three pictures she saw in the mausoleum's antiquities room. In one picture, she is standing with her father and aunt, Fatima Jinnah. The other is a painting of her mother, Rattanbai Petit. In the third, her father is dictating a letter, showing, in a sense, the Mohammad Ali Jinnah's political persona.