Mr and Mrs Jinnah Read online

  In her general distress, Sarojini did something she had never dared before—tried to talk to Jinnah about it. It was a liberty she had never taken before throughout their long years of friendship, knowing how fiercely Jinnah resented any interference in his personal affairs. But her anxiety was too great to stop herself: ‘Jinnah has grown so dumb. No one can even approach him. I think he is hurt to the core because she left him like that, almost without warning. In any case no one can interfere with him. He is too hard and proud and reserved for even an intimate friend to intrude beyond a certain point. All he says is, “I have been unhappy for ten years. I cannot endure it any longer. If she wants to be free I will not stand in her way. Let her be happy. But I will not discuss the matter with anyone. Please do not interfere.” And he is I suppose like a stone image in his loneliness and Ruttie is, although reveling in what she believes to be the beginning of liberty for her—Liberty costs too dear sometimes and is not worth the price . . . I am writing a line to Papi today. Poor child. She must like Ruttie be clamouring for “freedom”. This Freedom!!’

  What troubled Sarojini even more than their stubborn refusal to compromise was that neither Ruttie nor Jinnah seemed properly upset by what had happened. ‘The really tragic part of it,’ as she pointed out to her friend Syud Hossain a few weeks later, ‘is that both seem so relieved.’

  But neither was really as unemotional as they pretended to be. There was certainly more behind Jinnah’s assumed indifference and show of relief than he let on. And Sarojini’s initial suspicion that he was hurt to the core by Ruttie’s sudden desertion was not entirely unfounded. Outwardly, he stuck to his old routine, driving himself even harder with no leisure even to feel his rage and humiliation at her unexplained desertion. There was more than enough to keep him busy for the moment. First, he had the split within the Muslim League to try and patch up. This seemed more urgent than working on his marriage because it was threatening to undermine his only remaining asset as a national leader—being the undisputed leader of Muslims in the country. With the split, the dissident Leaguers had gone over to the government’s side, leaving him with no Muslim support for either the boycott of the Simon Commission or to reach a Hindu–Muslim settlement with the Congress. Grabbing the chance to hit him now that the chink in his armour was exposed, both the government and his opponents in the Congress began deriding him as a leader without a base. Facing increasing isolation, he fought back grimly, his proud spirit refusing to bend in order to placate his opponents.

  It was the same on his personal front—his pride would not allow him to find a mediator nor could he personally humble himself by talking to Ruttie. Hurt mortally by what he considered her betrayal, he retreated within his shell, rejecting all offers from friends to mediate on his behalf. Within a week of their parting, he had left for a meeting of Muslim leaders in Lucknow without expressing a word of regret or remorse to her. He refused to talk about it, to her or to anyone else. The campaign he was leading to boycott the Simon Commission became his sole mission now, ignoring the fact that it was only making him more unpopular among Muslims.

  As for Ruttie, he did not see or speak to her for the two remaining weeks in Bombay before he left for the new legislative session in Delhi in early February. The choice was clearly left up to her: to either stay on at the Taj if she wished or to return home during his absence in Delhi and go on as if nothing had happened. He certainly was not going to say or do anything to influence the outcome; it was as if it had nothing to do with him, as if he did not care. And he threw himself with more than his usual vigour into his political life.

  But even that unfailing source of his well-being seemed bent on betraying him now. The first blow was in the Legislative Assembly where his efforts had invariably yielded rewards. But as the first sign of the frustrations that lay ahead, the government, without giving any reason, shelved the report he had so assiduously prepared on the Sandhurst Committee’s recommendations, consigning all his hard work to the trash bin. Even Padmaja, cut off from politics in her sickbed, could sympathize with what he must have gone through at that moment. ‘Poor Jinnah,’ she wrote in a letter to Chagla from her sanatorium, ‘the pronouncement on the Skeen [another name for the Sandhurst Committee] recommendations must be a bitter disappointment for him. He was so tremendously keen on it.’ With the insight born of distance, or perhaps out of her more passive temperament, Padmaja could see the futility of his methods of fighting the government. ‘I suppose it is just one more of the many humiliations we still have to suffer—a million protest meetings won’t make any real difference. I am really beginning to wonder if it would not be more dignified for us not to utter any protests when these situations arise. We weep and cry and rant and threaten and protest and the government listens quietly and then simply does what it intended to do. But politics is a dismal subject . . .’

  Dismal or not, Jinnah nevertheless felt compelled to keep battering either at the doors of the government or trying to reach a political settlement with the Congress, pouring all his energy into resolving the political situation rather than addressing his personal problems. Within a week of the government shelving the Sandhurst Committee’s report, Jinnah’s Delhi Proposals which everyone, including himself, thought would finally resolve the never-ending Hindu–Muslim differences, came up against heavy resistance at the all-parties conference. The proposals, when he had made them a few months ago, were warmly welcomed by the Congress and no one doubted that they would be cleared by the conference without any difficulties, considering that the subcommitteee which had been set up to steer the proposal through the conference included two influential Congress leaders who were also his friends—Motilal Nehru and Sarojini Naidu. But even they were helpless, with the Hindu Mahasabha putting up a stiff resistance to every clause of Jinnah’s deal. As Sarojini put it in a letter home on 13 February 1928: ‘The political all-parties conference is driving me silly. Even at this critical juncture men will not relent . . . and haggle for small gains! I am sick with them and of them.’ It was Jinnah who showed more patience than her, trying to get the members to see reason. But in the end, he too had to give up and walk out of the conference. Sarojini, watching helplessly from the sidelines as his Hindu opponents tore into his proposals, felt her heart going out to him, valiant till the last. ‘The Delhi session was really Jinnah’s session,’ she wrote to Chagla after the conference had ended without conclusion. ‘His personality dominated both the issues in the Assembly and in the All Parties Conference. Never have I admired him more than now. What dignity and courage in the midst of suffering—what patience, persuasion and real statesmanship he showed during the most trying period of the prolonged conference.’

  Sarojini had arrived in Delhi a fortnight in advance of the all-parties conference in order to lay the ground for a consensus, and stayed another ten days while the talks were going on—almost a month without once going back to Bombay at a time when she badly wanted to be there for Ruttie’s sake. But as with Jinnah, politics came first and last, with personal work relegated to the crevices of time in between political work and meetings.

  The Petits had also come to Delhi, as was their custom every year at this time. In fact, the Delhi ‘season’ usually began with a grand party they hosted every year. But while they tried to go on as usual, it was clear they were shaken by this second blow from their daughter. They had obviously heard about it before anyone else, possibly from Sarojini who would have undoubtedly been anxious to rope in Ruttie’s parents to deal with the crisis before the news got out, even if Ruttie wished to keep them out of it. And Lady Petit at least appears to have lost no time in reaching out to her daughter, even getting Ruttie to agree to join her on a trip to Europe for the summer. But her distress over her daughter’s situation, especially her acute alarm over the child who was now living alone with the servants while Jinnah was away in Delhi and Ruttie staying with her cats at the Taj, had put a visible strain on Lady Petit. So palpable was the effect of the shock on her tha
t the next time Sarojini met her, which was at the Petit’s gala in Delhi, the usually elegant and very poised Lady Petit looked simply ‘terrible’, as Sarojini wrote to tell Padmaja the day after the party.

  While leaving Bombay, Sarojini had promised Ruttie that she would be back to spend at least the few remaining weeks with Ruttie before she sailed for Europe with her mother. But there was a change of plans at the last moment. News arrived from home that Padmaja, whose health had steadily deteriorated over the past few months despite Sarojini’s brisk remonstrations to shake off her weakness, was finally diagnosed with the dreaded tuberculosis. Dr Naidu decided to move her at once to a TB sanatorium in south India until they could somehow arrange the money for an extended treatment in Europe. For Sarojini, who had long abandoned all family duties in service of the national cause, this was a maternal call she could hardly ignore. ‘Courage Darling’, she wired home directly from the Delhi Council chamber, almost the minute she got the news. And without waiting for the high command to release her from her various duties, Sarojini cancelled all her engagements for the next few weeks and prepared to set off for home at once: ‘Returning home soon to look after you and make you well with love and care,’ her cable said.

  But even in her state of worry for her own daughter, thoughts of Ruttie continued to trouble Sarojini. Knowing how eagerly Ruttie would be awaiting her return from Delhi, Sarojini did not have the heart to go directly to Hyderabad without seeing her. She decided to reroute her train journey to Hyderabad via Bombay ‘literally for a day, in case I can’t get back to say goodbye before she [Ruttie] sails’, as she explained in a letter to Chagla.

  There was nothing in Ruttie’s appearance at least to make Sarojini anxious. In fact, she seemed vastly improved in looks after the separation. As Sarojini wrote in a brief note to Padmaja from the Taj on the day she arrived, ‘Ruttie is looking very lovely again.’ There was also a letter waiting from Leilamani, who had recently moved to Lahore to take up a teaching job in a women’s college. Referring to Leilamani’s complaint about Ruttie continuing to cold-shoulder her because of their old quarrel, Sarojini added: ‘Poor Papi is very hurt that inspite of a letter she apparently wrote, Ruttie remains cold and indifferent.’ Characteristically, Sarojini left it at that, changing the topic to: ‘Ruttie will feel very sad at my not being able to say goodbye to her when she sets out on her journey and her new life of what she calls Freedom.’

  Radiantly beautiful as Ruttie had again become, Sarojini nevertheless continued to be concerned about her. All through the activity and bustle of shifting Padmaja to the sanatorium by train and the round of farewells that preceded their departure from Hyderabad, she could not rid herself of a nagging worry about Ruttie. And as soon as she had settled down in the sanatorium with Padmaja, she wrote to Chagla to ask: ‘Do you see Mrs Jinnah at all? I am very troubled about her.’ And then, as if to reassure herself more than him, she went on to say in the letter dated 2 April 1928: ‘I believe in the French poet’s saying, A chacun son infini [Each to his own infinity] and she will solve her problem in her own headlong way—it is headlong and headstrong—but youth will be served.’

  This philosophical tone was certainly an improvement after her earlier frantic attempts to stop the news of the breakup from spreading among their friends. She had even written to Chagla then, cautioning him to keep his mouth shut. ‘Be very discreet in all your dealings and conversations in regard to the affair that is causing all of us so much concern,’ she had written to him on 5 February, four weeks after Ruttie left Jinnah and came to live at the Taj. And to take the sting out of her warning not to gossip, she added kindly: ‘I know you are very discreet.’

  But her main purpose in writing to Chagla from the sanatorium was altogether different. She needed to get in touch with Jinnah urgently before he too sailed for Europe as he had been planning to for some time, though without actually deciding one way or the other. The all-parties conference had ended with no consensus in sight and she knew that no political settlement was possible during his absence. She had left Delhi so hurriedly that she had had no time to even discuss with him which tactic they should now adopt in order to push his proposals through the Congress. ‘Please let me know when he [Jinnah] returns to Bombay,’ urged Sarojini in her letter, ‘and also, should he finally decide to go to Europe, on what date he sails. You know his aversion to writing so you will please do this urgent commission for me.’ And to underline the urgency, she added: ‘Please wire me if Jinnah has returned.’

  As it happened, Jinnah had already returned to Bombay even before Sarojini had written to Chagla. Ruttie had not moved back to South Court during his absence as he had been hoping, thinking perhaps her friends would instil some sense into her. Instead, she had prevailed upon Kanji to help her shift some of her things from South Court to a suite in the Taj, which she rented on a monthly basis, following the example of Sarojini and many others who lived in the hotel. Sticking to the plan she had made with her mother, Ruttie sailed for Europe with Lady Petit on 10 April 1928. Jinnah did not stop her. He could not—or would not—bend to seek a compromise with her. As he later admitted to an old Parsi friend who had been trying to bring them together: ‘It is my fault. We both need some sort of understanding we cannot give.’

  But the emotional toll of the past three months had left its mark on him. When Sarojini next met him, only twenty days after Ruttie sailed, she could see the change at once. ‘Jinnah is looking very thin and aged,’ she wrote to Padmaja on 1 May 1928, having just arrived in Bombay after settling her daughter down in the sanatorium.

  Four days later, on 5 May, after resisting the idea of a holiday alone, Jinnah, too, had taken off for Europe. The courts had already closed for summer three weeks ago, and his hopes of reaching a historic political settlement with the Congress on the Hindu–Muslim issues had been effectively dashed by the opposition within the Congress; even his talks with the viceroy were useless. Tired of the constant struggle to hold his own while others combined forces to isolate and push him off the political stage, he decided a trip to England might not be such a bad idea, after all. At least, he still had friends in the British government who would perhaps be more amenable to reason.

  It was the kind of voyage that he used to enjoy as a bachelor. On board with him were at least three friends—fellow legislator and a former Congress president, Sir Srinivasa Iyengar, another lawyer and politician, Tulsi Goswami, and a young friend he was very fond of, Dewan Chaman Lal, who he had once hired as an editor for the Bombay Chronicle and was now in the legislature with him. The three, especially the young and admiring Chaman Lal, were an ample audience for expounding his views on current politics. And while he did talk of nothing but politics on board, engaging even strangers on deck in political conversation, he was clearly not in the best of spirits. In fact, according to Chaman Lal, he cut a very lonely and despondent figure on board.

  Midway through their journey, he had a sudden impulse. As Chaman Lal recalled, as the ship approached Port Said, Jinnah remarked that although he had passed through the Suez Canal countless times, either on his way to Europe or back, he had never stopped to see Cairo. Then he came up with a suggestion that was most unlike him. Why not they hire a boat and go to Cairo for the day, returning to the ship the same night before it took off the next morning? There was so much enthusiasm for Jinnah’s suggestion, not only among his three friends but other passengers as well, that eventually a very large party set off at the crack of dawn in a fleet of taxis to explore Cairo. It was a trip that Ruttie had always yearned to make with him, travelling to unexpected places and living in a spontaneous way, open to new experiences. But it was Chaman Lal who made that trip with Jinnah, not her.

  There were other instances during the same trip in which Chaman Lal began to see the more human side of his great friend. One memorable moment was when they stopped in the middle of the desert to relieve themselves. As Chaman Lal recounted: ‘Suddenly the huge procession of cars stopped. The women went o
n one side and the men on the other; and we were standing easing ourselves side by side, Jinnah and myself, when a tiny little dog belonging to one of the ladies in this place came along from under the car, gave one look at this tall figure, Jinnah, he thought was a lamppost and started to utilize it for this purpose. Jinnah was as much flabbergasted as anybody!’