Mr and Mrs Jinnah Read online

  As for her, the paper suggested in an editorial two days later that she had married Jinnah for his prestige and worldly fame, and had converted to Islam as a way to get this great catch. Under the headline ‘A Parsi Baronet’s daughter embraces Islam’, the editorial said:

  Readers must have come across the news of the renowned Parsi Baronet Sir Dinshaw Petit’s only daughter Ruttenbai embracing Islam and marrying the eminent nationalist Muslim Honourable Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Was it the truth and the divineness of Islam, or her love for him (that led to her conversion)? Whatever it was, the event nevertheless created a sensation in the Parsi community. If love has the power to change faith, then it has certainly produced much more magnificent results. In any case, to those liberal-minded people who have acquired materialistic views, religion and customs hardly mean anything. However, it is hoped that Sir Dinshaw and the Parsi community would see the incident in this perspective. Jinnah is a top-ranking advocate, lawyer and a leader of the nationalists and the darling of the Bar of Bombay Presidency, besides being a member of the viceroy’s legislative council as the representative of the Muslims of Bombay Presidency. In other words, there is no doubt in his being a celebrated lawyer. In terms of respect, renown and worldly grace, he could not but be the most deserving candidate for this marriage. The conversion of a renowned Parsi’s daughter and her marriage to an eminent Muslim may not be the first incident in the present history of the Bombay Presidency but it is very interesting indeed.

  In front of J she could laugh about it, but the tone, at once sneering and patronizing, got under her skin. Worse, she could see by the look in people’s eyes that they had read these articles about her and J, and despite her mask of sophisticated indifference, she felt a creeping sense of shame, especially at the way her poor dear Papa’s name was being dragged into the whole controversy.

  But now, with the Delhi trip out of the way, she could look forward to a month’s respite, spending the whole of May alone with J in Nainital. Mahmudabad had offered them his house in the hill station, Galloway House, for their honeymoon and they were going to drive there from Lucknow in a day or two. Mercifully, there was nothing further happening this summer on the political front to distract J’s attention.

  The month passed quickly, but not in that swell of passion and excitement she had dreamt about. Her life’s only goal so far had been the pursuit of her grand passion, but having finally reached it, there had been so far only a sense, surprisingly, of disappointment which she hid even from herself. Having imagined that he was a non-conformist like her concealed behind his staid manner, his need to put his work above everything else, including food and rest, had been a big blow to her. She had yearned to break through the veils of his many self-repressions and discover for herself the real man with all his intense, impassioned longing for love, like herself. But the real J kept eluding her, hidden behind his cool and rational mind, never giving himself up to even a single display of deep emotion. Worse, sex with him was not thrilling, even before the initial novelty wore off.

  In her inexperience, it had not occurred to her to make anything of J’s long years of celibacy or even his lack of physical demonstrativeness while they were courting. If it had, she would have probably put it down to yet further evidence of his admirable willpower. It was not as if sex was something that could be discussed openly, not even in the girlish confidences she exchanged with Padmaja. The closest she ever got to raising the topic that was uppermost in her mind during her courtship was when she tentatively asked Padmaja if her current admirer was ‘better in . . .’ than a previous suitor. Even that had filled her with so much embarrassment that she had dropped the question midway.

  But now that they were married and J’s mask of self-assurance and worldly wisdom had begun to fall off, the man she discovered was not the fierce and passionate lover of her dreams who she thought would burn ‘storming passions into the very fibre of her being’, but someone altogether more timid and naïve, a child almost—spoilt but brilliant, and touching in his need for her admiration. And intuitively, she scooped him—metaphorically—up into her lap, as if he was really her child. As Kanji Dwarkadas later perceptively put it in his memoir of Ruttie, ‘Though she was so much younger than he, she without his realizing it, looked after him.’

  It was with this maternal indulgence she began to regard him—forgiving him his stiffness and egotism and his habit of being ‘idiotically sensible’, able to take his scoffing at her poetry and finer sensibilities sportingly, and keeping her own feelings apart. So what if he didn’t really understand her, she could still keep intact the dream she had always nursed of ‘pouring love on parched, unlighted souls and through sympathy and understanding’ make them blossom, as she had once written to Leilamani. She could still build her ‘whole character—(her) whole life’ on love, making her personality ‘the soul of love and sympathy’, letting her ‘passionate desire grow into a fair and fragrant flower—so beautiful that it shall draw and command love through its own loveliness’.

  And so Jinnah found himself shaken suddenly out of his careful habits, teased and coaxed into abandoning his newspapers for riding and motoring in the countryside. Although he liked both horses and motor cars, the outdoors did not really interest him. He did not share her desire to feast his soul on nature, either for its ‘exquisite and fierce grandeur’ or to see if it was ‘astir with song birds and little insects’. At nights, he had no wish to gaze at the stars and the fireflies; he wanted only to sit indoors with a drink, talking politics with an admirer or two, preferably male. And being a plain-spoken man, he was not afraid to tell her so, bluntly. But nonetheless, he did make an effort, even consenting to be drawn into the garden to plant a sapling as a memento of their love. But he drew the line at responding to the telegrams of congratulation pouring in from his friends on their nuptials. It was a waste of time writing polite nothings, according to him, but she, of course, was free to do as she pleased.

  And it did please her to send off these little thank-you notes, just one line filling the whole page in her bold, graceful hand, so casual and un-copybook-like in the liquid ease of letters flowing informally into each other, the words coming easily. ‘Dear Mr Syud Mahmud,’ she wrote in one, ‘This comes to thank you from us both for your wire of good wishes,’ signing her new name for the first time: ‘R. Jinnah’.

  It gave her pride in her new marital status, as did her fussing over his food and appearance, ruling over him with such tender dignity that he became wholly dependent on her without knowing it, trusting in her taste and judgement, his eyes constantly seeking her approval in a way that made her feel both proud and powerful.

  But all too soon it was June, and J was set on going back home to Bombay. Like it or not, it was time to face the music back home.

  Chapter Eight

  She knew that it could not be put off forever. Sooner or later, she would have to face her parents. And while she dreaded that first moment of their meeting, at least J would be there at her side, with his reassuring practicality, to smooth over the awkwardness. Although she had hidden away her doubts and misgivings from J, and indeed from her own self, she had faith that things would eventually work out between her father and themselves. Her father’s conventionality behind his liberal exterior had enraged her when she lived with him, but now that she had had her own way and married J, she could afford to recollect the many ways he had indulged her throughout her life. She had always been his delight and joy, with him taking immense pride in her beauty and gift of repartee, especially in her love for reading, which he valued even more because he was not a bookish man himself. Her mother, she knew, would come around without difficulty—Lady Petit had always liked J, no matter how hard her husband tried to persuade her otherwise. And now that they were actually married, Ruttie could already see her Mama planning any number of grand saris for her trousseau and the receptions that would be held for them. But her father? Surely he loved her too much to hold on to his anger. Besides, what
would be the point of him hanging on to his pride when they’d already been married for five weeks now? But still, as she watched their bags being packed at Galloway House, she simply could not share J’s eagerness to return home even before the high court reopened after its summer vacation.

  The reason for Jinnah’s un-lover–like haste to get back from his honeymoon was the announcement of the Provincial War Conference. Summoned by the Bombay governor as a follow-up to the Delhi War Conference in April end, it was a further attempt by the government to drum up support for the War, this time from the ruling princes, political leaders and leading citizens of the Bombay Presidency. And Jinnah, despite his failure at the previous conference to squeeze out any political concessions from the government, was just as keen to attend. He refused to believe in the futility of his memoranda and speeches, and in fact he and Ruttie had arrived in Bombay three days before the conference only in order to give him enough time to work out a fresh strategy for striking a bargain with the government on political reforms.

  The four weeks in Nainital had been the longest break he had taken from all political activity, at least in the past decade, and having just got back, he had far too much on his mind to worry about his father-in-law’s next move. In his usual thorough way, he had made sure that Sir Dinshaw’s charge of abducting his daughter would not have a legal leg to stand on if he did decide to pursue them in court. And having plugged all possible loopholes, Jinnah now felt free to focus on the far more engrossing world of politics.

  His young deputies in the Home Rule League had been keeping up the political momentum while he was away, with public lectures and even a large political meeting at Shantaram Chawl, where meetings were held when the crowd was larger than 2000. But now that he was back, he was eager to wrest the reins of leadership back into his own hands. On their very first evening back from Nainital, Jinnah decided to preside over a public lecture addressed by Annie Besant, and Ruttie went along with him, glad to put off for another day the dreaded meeting with her parents. And when Jinnah’s faithful friend and lieutenant Horniman explained during his vote of thanks how Jinnah would lead a ‘political agitation of an unparalleled kind in this country’ if the government delayed political reforms any further, she could put her own fluttering fears about her parents aside and give herself over once again to her stirring dream of fighting by J’s side for the country’s freedom from the British yoke.

  It was Jinnah who was the first to come face-to-face with her parents. This was three evenings later at the town hall where the Provincial War Conference was being held. Both Sir Dinshaw and Lady Petit had been invited for it—hand-picked by the governor for their unswerving loyalty to the British. And although both of them had been avoiding going out or meeting anyone since Ruttie’s marriage, the War conference was far too important an occasion for Sir Dinshaw to turn down the governor’s invitation. It might have occurred to them that they would bump into Jinnah there, but still it was hard to watch him walk in with his usual calm and self-assured demeanour, while they uneasily felt themselves the centre of all eyes in the town hall. But somehow, Sir Dinshaw managed to get through his short speech supporting the resolution on loyalty to the king, as was expected of him, and both the baronet and his lady got through their ordeal with whatever dignity they could muster.

  It was much easier for Jinnah. Even if he had been the sort of man to be bruised by the cold looks directed at him, especially from the Parsi invitees, he had more practice ignoring what he did not want to see. Besides, there was far too much happening inside the town hall that evening for him to pay any attention to the personal drama of which he was the centre. There was a political drama unfolding there that held his attention so effectively that nothing else seemed to matter. The governor, Lord Willingdon, opened the proceedings in the hall by directly targeting the Home Rulers. In his speech, he not only questioned the sincerity of these leaders’ support to the empire but even warned them that the government would not accept their ‘half-hearted’ assistance. The Home Rulers did not take this insult lying down. Tilak, who had been listed as one of the first speakers, began to protest against the governor’s remark and was rudely interrupted by the governor for straying into what the latter considered ‘a political discussion’. Tilak then stormed out of the hall, followed shortly by a fellow legislator, N.C. Kelkar, who was also silenced by the governor for putting forward his views on the resolution. Jinnah’s other Home Rule associates, including Horniman, Jamnadas Dwarkadas and Bomanji, also walked out, but he decided to stay even though he was the only Home Rule Leaguer remaining in the hall. His stubborn pride would not allow him to walk out at the end of his speech like the others. Instead, he wanted to stick it out in the hall, facing the hostility directed at him from all sides, and register his protest by abstaining from voting.

  The hostility that Jinnah faced inside the town hall from the Parsis spilled outside it as well. At first, it was difficult to tell how much of their sudden animosity towards him was because of his daring to snatch a Parsi girl of their top circle from under her father’s nose and convert her to Islam; and how much of it had to do with his aggressive anti-government stance. All that was evident in the beginning was that the Parsis suddenly closed ranks and vociferously supported the governor’s attack against Jinnah and his Home Rule League. Two days after the War conference, Bombay’s leading Parsi, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy organized a public meeting calling people to subscribe to the second Indian War loan, which Jinnah and other members of the Home Rule League boycotted as a protest against their treatment at the conference.

  But the Parsis’ ploy of banding together behind the governor and helping him bring down Jinnah didn’t really work. The newspapers, especially the Bombay Chronicle, not only took his side against the governor, but he was projected on public platforms as the only leader who had the courage to stay back in the town hall after the other Home Rule Leaguers had walked out in order to ‘throw into His Excellency’s face the insult which he had thrown at them’. It ended up turning Jinnah into more of a public hero than he already was.

  It was with this pleasant rush from his latest political triumph that the newly-weds finally met Sir Dinshaw. Contrary to Ruttie’s expectations, they had not been invited to Petit Hall. Instead, they were summoned to court to answer a fresh charge her father had clapped on Jinnah. His daughter, he claimed in a fresh suit, had been abducted by Jinnah with a mercenary eye on her fortune.

  Nothing could have offended Jinnah more deeply. He who had always prided himself on being a self-made millionaire, to be accused of being nothing but a common fortune hunter! Now certainly there could be no reconciliation with her family. He would be only too glad to cut himself away from them forever and they, and everyone else, would see how he could keep his wife in the style that she had been accustomed to.

  Ruttie’s feelings were more chaotic. Her father’s appearance was a rude shock. She couldn’t help but see that her Papa had aged visibly in the last five weeks. All his bonhomie had vanished, replaced with a bitter, defeated look that made him appear at least twenty years older than J. But she avoided his eye as she focused on what the judge was asking Jinnah: did he abduct Ruttie Petit from her father’s home? And with a bold defiance that smote Sir Dinshaw even more than her elopement, she jumped impetuously to Jinnah’s defence. ‘Sir,’ she said with that fierce protectiveness she had already developed for her J, ‘Mr Jinnah has not abducted me; in fact I have abducted him.’ Sir Dinshaw never forgot her words or her expression. His beloved daughter had just demolished the legal case he had taken such pains to put together for her rescue. But more heartbreakingly, she had chosen Jinnah over him. It was all over now, except for getting her to sign the legal papers renouncing her claims on her inheritance.

  Ruttie was beyond noticing her Papa’s hurt and disappointment. When she had rushed so recklessly to her husband’s defence, Jinnah had been surprised like everyone else in the courtroom. But when he heard her words, he could not help smili
ng. Seeing that rare, sweet smile of his that she loved more than anything else in the world, nothing else seemed to matter. She had never before, not even when she walked out of Petit Hall with only her umbrella, felt so brave and noble and fearless. It was all worth it—yes, even cutting herself away from her Papa and Mama, who had never understood her.

  But what neither she nor Jinnah seemed to realize—united now in their rage at Ruttie’s Papa’s unreasonableness and his stupid pride—was Sir Dinshaw’s own compulsions. Their marriage, especially her conversion to Islam, had not just been a personal family problem but had put the entire Parsi community on the warpath. Sir Dinshaw was suddenly faced not just with the hostility of the orthodox and the less well-to-do, which he could, and had, ignored in the past. But this new belligerence of theirs was very different. Regardless of the fact that he had vehemently opposed his daughter’s marriage and had even gone to court against Jinnah to prove it publicly, they were now screaming for his head in exchange for the couple’s. Even his most anglicized friends and relatives, instead of rallying behind him, were quietly joining the witch-hunt. It left him with no real choice: it was either cutting off his daughter and Jinnah from his life and will or subjecting himself, his wife and sons to an excommunication from the community. This was the gun being held to his head, and the real cause of his anger and sorrow.