Dina Wadia was born on 15 August 1919 to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Rattanbai. After India's partition in 1947, she stayed in Mumbai while her father moved to Pakistan. She grew up under her grandmother’s care after her mother died. Dina later said, "she took over completely and brought me up."
India's partition in 1947 split thousands of families. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was one of them. His only child, Dina Wadia, chose to stay in Bombay, now Mumbai with her family. Father and daughter wrote to each other and, according to some accounts, met occasionally in India. After Partition, they never met again in his lifetime.
Dina's parents had married against the wishes of their families and communities. She was born on 15 August 1919 to Jinnah and his second wife, Rattanbai, known as Ruttie. Ruttie came from an influential Parsi family and was 24 years younger than Jinnah, who was a Muslim. She converted to Islam to marry him, and the Parsi community ostracised her. Her own family distanced themselves too.
The marriage was already under strain when Dina was born, and she arrived prematurely. Ruttie was young and in poor health, and she often left the baby with nannies and nurses while she visited friends and relatives in other cities. Jinnah was busy with his legal practice and his political ambitions. According to reports, the child went without a name for a long time.
It was Ruttie's mother, Lady Dinabai Petit, who took charge of Dina's early years. With Jinnah so often away, she suggested sending her granddaughter to a boarding school in Panchgani. In Mr and Mrs Jinnah, Sheela Reddy writes that Jinnah "not only submitted docilely to her suggestions, but was relieved to have the decision taken out of his hands, trusting Lady Petit henceforth with all major decisions regarding the raising of his only daughter."
Lady Petit had not met her granddaughter until Ruttie separated from Jinnah, but Reddy writes that the bond between them was close and lasting. The nameless child decided to take her grandmother's name, Dina. Reddy adds that Dina still told her friends how much she loved her grandmother, and how grateful she was for the way "she took over completely and brought me up" after her mother's death.
Dina was nine when Ruttie died. Two years later, Jinnah moved to London and took her with him. His sister Fatima came along to look after Dina, who went to a private school in Sussex.
London is where father and daughter seem to have spent the most time together. In an interview with the academic and author Akbar Ahmed, published in Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, Dina remembered living in Hampstead in the 1930s. Her father, she said, would take her to the theatre, to pantomimes and to the circus.
She had a name for him. Dina called her father "Grey Wolf", after a book he was fascinated by, Grey Wolf: An Intimate Study of a Dictator, which was based on the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Jinnah placed few restrictions on his only daughter. The first real disagreement between them came when she chose a husband. Dina wanted to marry Neville Wadia, a Parsi whose father had converted to Christianity. Jinnah, who was then leader of the All-India Muslim League, did not want his daughter to marry a non-Muslim.
Dina told Ahmed: "He wasn't too happy because I think it was that crucial time all around. He was very disapproving, and we didn't speak for a few years."
She married Neville in 1938. Jinnah did not attend the wedding, although according to reports he sent a bouquet of flowers. The couple had two children and separated in 1943.
By then, father and daughter were speaking again. Her letters to him, published in historian Khawaja Razi Haider's book Ruttie Jinnah, show how far they had moved on from the argument. In a letter dated 28 April 1947, she congratulated him and began "My darling Papa". She closed with: "Take care of yourself Papa darling. Lots of love & kisses, Dina."
A letter from June 1947 reads as warmly. "Papa darling, At this minute you must be with the Viceroy," she wrote. She told him it was wonderful what he had achieved in the last few years, and that she felt proud and happy for him. Then she teased him a little, ending the letter with: "...this letter is beginning to sound like fan-mail, isn't it?"
Within months, Partition had put a border between them. Dina stayed in India while her father went to Pakistan. They never met again in his lifetime, although they remained in touch through letters. When Jinnah died in Karachi in September 1948, Dina travelled there to attend his funeral. This was her first visit to Pakistan.