Mr and Mrs Jinnah Page 49

  Hector Bolitho writes In Quest of Jinnah: ‘Lady Willingdon is a very silly woman. She should have known better. It is a pity, because Lord Willingdon was a great gentleman. It is a question, you know—how much were the wives of Britons appointed to India responsible for our losing her. Wives of senior army officers often lose the battles their husbands have won.’

  ‘I saw Ruttie yesterday looking very ill but quite happy,’ writes Sarojini Naidu to Leilamani Naidu, in a letter dated 21 August 1918 from Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay. From the Leilamani Naidu Papers (NMML archives).

  Chapter Ten

  Vicereine Alice Reading wrote in a letter dated 13 February 1924: ‘Mostyn-Owen, one of our Aides, who is rather a good young man, said to her [Ruttie] that the hotel where she is living was “nice and quiet at night”, to which she replied, “I don’t like nice, quiet nights, I like a lot going on.”’ Quoted in Jinnah and His Times.

  Ruttie’s fantasizes about her role in public life in her letter to Padmaja Naidu, dated 7 January 1917, cited in the Padmaja Naidu Papers (NMML archives).

  Public demonstrations, speeches and events leading up to the meeting in the town hall and after, from the Bombay Chronicle, 8–28 December, reproduced in The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1917–1918, vol. 4.

  Jinnah’s recollection of his mentor and patron, Sir George Lowndes, quoted in Secular and Nationalist Jinnah by Ajeet Jawed (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  Pencil markings in Jinnah’s copy of Cicero’s ‘Offices’, Essays on Friendship and Old Age and Select Letters, from Jinnah’s collection of books in the Karachi University Library.

  In 1915, Jinnah brought the Muslim League close to the Congress by holding its session at the same time as the Congress’s in Bombay, but the proceedings were disrupted by a large group of dissidents with tacit support from the government, which did not approve of the two organizations coming together. After its president was abused by the dissidents for his English way of dressing and conducting the proceedings in English instead of Urdu, the sitting was adjourned and reassembled the next day in the Taj Mahal Hotel, with only League members and the press allowed to enter the closed-door meeting.

  Years later, Sir Cowasji Jehangir told Bolitho: ‘I was fond of him [Jinnah] because of his sense of justice and because, with all the differences and bitterness of political life, he was never malicious. Hard, maybe, but never malicious.’ Cited In Quest of Jinnah.

  Kanji Dwarkadas writes: ‘At a Committee meeting of the Home Rule League in March 1918, where Mrs [Annie] Besant was present by special invitation, Jinnah, pointing at me, told her, “Mrs Besant, this is my best worker in the whole Committee. He works, the others make speeches.” This was overheard by one of our colleagues, who resented the remark and felt that Jinnah was running him down.’ From Gandhiji through My Diary Leaves 1915–1948 by Kanji Dwarkadas (published by Kanji Dwarkadas, Bombay, 1950).

  Miss Agatha Harrison, one of the speakers at a memorial meeting for Jinnah at Caxton Hall, London, on 14 September 1948, is quoted as saying: ‘When Jinnah was a student in London [1892–96] the suffragette movement was gathering momentum; but we had very few sympathizers and supporters. Young Jinnah always came to our meetings and spoke in defence of vote for women. Even then he was not afraid of championing an unpopular cause.’ From The Jinnah Anthology, edited by Liaquat H. Merchant and Sharif al Mujahid (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  Chapter Eleven

  According to Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, eminent lawyer and politician, ‘Jinnah was at once a hero, admired, honoured, praised, nay, loved by all. Public addresses were presented to him, garden parties were held in his honour, and every one suggested that this unique service rendered by him to his people should be commemorated.’ Another colleague who later turned into Jinnah’s political foe, M.R. Jayakar, said: ‘The public sentiment created by the agitation was so strong that Jinnah received the gift of a public fund, called the People’s One Rupee Fund, out of the proceeds of which was raised a memorial to him, called “the Jinnah’s People’s Memorial Hall” in Bombay.’ Quoted in Jinnah and His Times.

  J.N. Sahni writes in The Lid Off: Fifty Years of Indian Politics (New Delhi: Deep Publications, 1972) about his first meeting with Jinnah. Sahni was a volunteer at the Amritsar session of the Congress (26–30 December 1919): ‘At this time Railway Porters went on strike. We were suddenly commissioned to transport the loads of luggage of an unending stream of incoming passengers. One of these, more striking than the others, emerged from a first-class compartment dressed like a fashion-plate model—tall, slim and commanding. His attendant poured out several fancy pieces of luggage and insisted that each piece be carried separately. He himself undertook to carry the tiffin carrier and a silver-knobbed walking stick of the “master”. We felt proud of the commission since the gentleman in top coat, sola topee, gloves and spats was the famous M.A. Jinnah.’ Quoted in Secular and Nationalist Jinnah.

  The Jinnahs usually travelled in a first-class coupé attended by several servants who travelled in a separate coach and whose duty it was to come to their carriage at every station to see if anything was required of them by their master and mistress.

  Jinnah’s speeches on the floor of the House on the Rowlatt Bills, cited in the Proceedings of the Indian Legislative Council from April 1918 to March 1919, vol. LVII, Calcutta, 1919; also quoted in The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1919–1920, vol. 5.

  George Lloyd’s letter to Montagu, 4 July 1919, in the Montagu Papers, vol. 24, and cited in Ambassador of Hindu–Muslim Unity by Ian Bryant Wells.

  The plan to arrest Jinnah and Gandhi along with four others had gone far enough for the viceroy to wire to the governor of Burma on 12 April 1919: ‘It is probable that I shall deport in the immediate future some six persons from Bombay area. I hope you will assist by accepting charge of them.’ From India’s Fight for Freedom.

  Ibid. On Jinnah’s close friendship with Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Gauba recounts in his Oral History Transcript: ‘It was said these three men (Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Horniman and Jinnah) more or less bachelors, artificially bachelors, in their youth painted Bombay red.’ The friendship between Horniman and Jinnah goes even further back, as Diwan Chaman Lal recounts in his oral history transcript (Account No. 220, NMML archives): ‘Benjamin Horniman told me that he and Jinnah, when Jinnah was in need of funds in England, both began on jobs in some play or other, in a theatre. They were both supernumerary in the theatre. Horniman told me the story that he himself was on the stage doing a job when Jinnah applied to be taken on and their friendship goes back to those early days of this century.’

  Sarojini Naidu’s quotes from her letters to Padmaja Naidu, dated 13 and 25 February 1919 and 20 March 1919 (Padmaja Naidu Papers, NMML archives). Sarojini’s letters to Leilamani Naidu, dated 28 February 1919 and 20 April 1919 (Leilamani Naidu Papers, NMML archives).

  Ruttie’s silent dismay at the approaching arrival of her baby became pronounced enough to elicit comments from her friends and mother, but only after the birth of the child. As for how lonely and estranged Ruttie felt at this time while pretending to be in good spirits, she was to confess this to Sarojini only nine years later, as Sarojini’s letter to Padmaja Naidu, dated 20 January 1928, reveals.

  On Sarojini’s soirées in her Taj Mahal Hotel suite, one visitor, journalist G. Venkatachalam, had this to say: ‘Sarojini Naidu was then almost a permanent resident at the Taj, and her rooms at the hotel were always crowded with visitors of all sorts, from princes to paupers, and she played the hostess in the most princely way. All were welcomed and all were treated to drinks and food whenever they came. Even before you sat down, her first question would be: “What will you have?” If it was lunch or dinner time, she never asked you if you would care to share the meal with her; it was always a command: “Stay on and let us see if this poverty-stricken hotel would give us some decent food.” How she managed to produce that variety of appetizing food in a hotel like the Taj has always been a wonder to people! An in
vitation to dinner by Akka was always a social event, for you met at her table many interesting personalities, hobnobbed with the big and the small, ate and drank merrily in her genial company.’ Quoted in The Taj at the Apollo Bunder by Charles Allen and Sharada Dwivedi (Mumbai: Pictor, 2011).

  Nellie Sengupta (born Edith Ellen Gray) met her future husband, Jatindra Mohan Sengupta, as a student lodger at her parents’ home in Cambridge where they fell in love. Sengupta, a zamindar’s son from Bengal, nearly returned home after his graduation in law without her but midway through the journey, at Port Said, he changed his mind and went back to marry her and bring her home with him. He started a successful career as a lawyer which he gave up to join Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement of 1921 along with his wife, Nellie. They were both good friends of Sarojini Naidu’s.

  After the trend of commissioned portraits in oil, portrait photography impressed the Indian gentry, especially the Parsi community, who became important patrons of the art from 1850 onwards. By 1875, it became so popular that a number of studios sprang up in Bombay, where the fashion-minded went to be recorded for posterity on film. The technique largely depended on daylight, and gas lamps were used to work after sunset. Large-format cameras and large-format paper negatives were in use then, and while the technique improved considerably by the twentieth century, it was still a time-consuming and unwieldy business to have your portrait taken.

  According to Kanji Dwarkadas, before Gandhi came into the political arena, ‘There was universal opposition to the Rowlatt Act from all over India, from all shades of political opinion. By his talk of passive resistance and civil disobedience, Gandhiji split the united opposition to the Rowlatt Act into two and those who did not join Gandhiji’s movement were dubbed traitors and cowards.’ Annie Besant, who was against Gandhi’s mass civil disobedience scheme, warned him that it would lead to every kind of violent upheaval but Gandhi did not agree. Cited in India’s Fight for Freedom.

  Jinnah’s correspondence with the Bombay government regarding the Bombay Chronicle of 26 April–8 May 1919, from The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1919–1920, vol. 5.

  Chapter Twelve

  In a letter to Gokhale on 18 April 1913, Sarojini Naidu wrote: ‘Mr Jinnah is travelling with you, one of the reasons I believe for his doing so is to discuss freely and fully with you problems that are as dear to me. Please have confidence in my judgement and conviction—about him—and use your great influence to make him realize that he is the man for whom great work is waiting. I believe if you confer together, you will gain a new hope and a colleague uniformly worth having. You are the only two men in whom I have faith . . .’ Cited in Jinnah and His Times.

  About the long period of limbo the First World War cast young people into, unable to plan their career or future, Shankarlal G. Banker, a former Home Rule League office-bearer who joined Gandhi’s Charkha Sangh, recounted: ‘No one foresaw the First World War coming and those caught in London colleges like me found the work at college becoming disorganized. No one could foresee how long the war would last.’ Cited in the Oral History Transcript of Shankarlal Banker (Account No. 153, NMML archives).

  In the world of rich Parsis that Ruttie came from, being widely travelled was an important element of good living, with books on eminent Parsis of Bombay’s high society listing among their many accomplishments the number of far-flung places across the world that they had visited. For example, a member of Bombay’s Society, a businessman and agent for Singer sewing machine, is described in one of these compendiums of successful Parsis in the early 1900s, as having visited, along with his wife, ‘all parts of Europe, America and the Continent’. In India, this couple laying claim to being the most-well travelled of a community that spent all its leisure exploring new places went ‘up to Peshawar and has even crossed the Frontier and visited Quetta, Chaman, Kandahar and the Khyber Pass, Lundi, Kotal and Ali Masjid and down South to Tuticorin and Ceylon as well as Karachi and Burma’.

  According to Kanji Dwarkadas, Annie Besant first tried to persuade Gandhi to join her delegation to give evidence before the Joint Select Committee on Indian Reforms. ‘Gandhiji said he would only go as an independent member. Mrs Besant immediately accepted the condition and added: “We can take you as an independent member. Why don’t you join our Home Rule League deputation?” But he eventually turned it down, and at the same time, also shot down sending a Congress deputation ‘because the men whom the Congress had selected would bring discredit to India’. Cited in India’s Fight for Freedom.

  Sarojini Naidu’s letter from on board the steamer Maskara to Leilamani Naidu, dated 15 June 1919, from the Leilamani Naidu Papers (NMML archives).

  Jinnah’s letter to S.A. Brelvi, dated 20 June 1919, in the S.A. Brelvi Papers (NMML archives).

  Jinnah’s distrust of Syed Abdullah Brelvi, who took Horniman’s place as editor of the Bombay Chronicle, was not unfounded as future events revealed. Kanji Dwarkadas writes of Brelvi’s role in the crusade to dub Jinnah a communalist in 1927 when the latter was making a ‘valiant’ effort to build Hindu–Muslim consensus: ‘As regards the Bombay Chronicle . . . with an amiable and mild editor, Syed Abdullah Brelvi, it started a crusade against Jinnah, dubbing him a rank communalist. Jinnah, I submit, was not a communalist, but Brelvi, to curry favour with the Congress High Command, attributed all kinds of base motives to Jinnah and created suspicion against and hatred of him. I know Jinnah rightly resented these false aspersions against him. The consequences were, however, what the reactionaries on both sides, and the Government wanted. And these misunderstandings and misrepresentations went on for years and years.’ Quoted in India’s Fight for Freedom.

  Jinnah–Gandhi correspondence, dated 2 June 1919, from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

  As Ian Bryant Wells writes: ‘Jinnah’s attempts to have Horniman’s passport returned to him proved unsuccessful. Similarly, his hopes that Montagu would overturn the Rowlatt Act failed to bear fruit, partly due to the fact that by 1919 official opinion of Jinnah had begun to sour. Both Lloyd and Willingdon had done their best to undermine Jinnah’s position with Montagu, with Lloyd writing to warn him of Jinnah’s unreliable character . . . Jinnah’s confidence in Montagu proved ill-placed. By 1919 Montagu’s star had begun to wane.’ Cited in Ambassador of Hindu–Muslim Unity: Jinnah’s Early Politics.

  Diwan Chaman Lal’s reminiscence on visiting Jinnah in London, from Tributes to Quaid-i-Azam edited by Muhammad Hanif Shahid (Lahore: Sang-e-Mell Publications, 1976).

  Chagla’s quote, from Roses in December.

  Jinnah’s evidence before the Joint Select Committee, from the Report of the Joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill (London) published by His Majesty’s Statutory Office as ordered by the House of Commons on 17 November 1919. Reproduced in The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1919–1920, vol. 5.

  B.G. Telang’s letter, dated 7 August 1919, from India’s Fight for Freedom.

  Shankerlal G. Banker relates how spinning classes were started at his home in Gamdevi where all the prominent ladies of Bombay came to learn spinning. A former Home Rule League member, when Banker joined Gandhi’s Swadeshi Sabha, set up in Bombay after the suspension of the movement for the repeal of the Rowlatt Act in 1919, he was given the job of finding a lady instructor to teach society ladies how to spin yarn. After searching high and low, he finally discovered his mother used to spin in her childhood and could teach others. Cited in Oral History Transcript (Account No. 153, NMML archives).

  Sarojini Naidu’s letter from London to her son Ranadheera, dated 13 August 1919: ‘I gave my evidence [before the Joint Select Committee] and apparently has caused a great stir throughout the country as I find all the journals devoting special space to it and I am dogged by photographers, interviewers and what not. I also took my deputation of men and women to wait on the Secretary of State—all this has meant hard work for me besides the almost daily sittings of the Parliamentary Committee . . . C.P. [Ramaswami Aiyer] is going back to India very shortly as also some oth
er members of deputation who can get passages. I have to stay sometime longer both for my treatment and for further work.’ Cited in the Ranadheera Naidu Papers (NMML archives).

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ruttie’s letter to Kanji Dwarkadas on 25 September 1922: ‘On Thursday we are due to reach Aden, and as I find your name among those heading my list, you can understand the date that tops this letter. Not that I have such a formidable budget to get through—but while riding the seas I drop my characteristics and become cautious. As many of you who have known me on sea times can ever imagine—for my intestine is ever on the defensive against the surging surface.’ Quoted in Ruttie Jinnah: The Story of a Great Friendship.

  Notice of Mr and Mrs Jinnah’s arrival in Bombay in the Bombay Chronicle of 15 November 1919. Cited in The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1919–1920, vol. 5.

  Jinnah’s interview under the headlines—’Sooner Lord Chelmsford Is Recalled The Better’; ‘Fate of Poor Turkey Almost Sealed’; ‘No Home Rule Without Power To Defend Homes’; ‘Mr Jinnah On Essentials of Indian Renaissance’—appeared in the Bombay Chronicle of 17 November, and is quoted in The Works of Quaid-i-Azam 1919–1920, vol. 5.

  Ruttie’s worship of spontaneous expression and loathing for any premeditated act of communication is reflected in her letter to Padmaja Naidu, dated 4 July 1916: ‘Strange isn’t it? But I also never re-read my letters once they are written. I don’t know why but somehow it would be unlike me to do so. There is something too tame and calculative about the idea.’

  Jinnah’s habit of reticence at home when there were no guests at the table is illustrated in this anecdote related in a biography of his sister, Fatima Jinnah, by Agha Hussain Hamdani: Hayat Aur Hidmat (Life and Work). Jinnah loved discussing politics at the breakfast table with Fatima but did not appreciate her asking him any probing questions. Once when she tried to find out from him what had happened in the (Muslim League) working committee’s meeting, he fobbed her off by responding with a smile: ‘Ask your representative. I’m not your representative.’ And when Fatima complained that her representative, a person known to her called Begum Mohammed Ali, doesn’t tell her anything, Jinnah responded: ‘Good. It is unusual for a woman to be quiet.’