Ruttie Jinnah: The Story, Told and Untold is a book that is all about Ruttenbai Dinshaw Petit and her eleven eventful years as a wife of a leader who was tender at heart and most ecstatic in moments of family privacy and cool and composed in public life. It talks about Ruttenbai at sixteen engaged in a legal battle against her future, at eighteen changed as wife of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and after four years of her marriage and seven years of tense moments of married life when Jinnah was intensely engaged in freedom struggle as a woman of substance.
Ruttenbai married Jinnah in 1918 and died in 1929. This marriage lasted for eleven years. Jinnah Sahib's first marriage to Emibai in 1892 did not last long. After the death of his first wife Jinnah had vowed to remain single for the rest of his life but Ruttenbai's charm, intellect and courage to face difficult situations and ability to take complex decisions even on behalf of Jinnah vanquished his resolve to remain a widower.
In the life of Jinnah there were only two persons, both women, who had influence over his decisions on personal and public affairs and had had the privilege to disagree even on matters convincing to Jinnah. Among the two women - Miss Fatima Jinnah and Ruttenbai - Ruttenbai had an opportunity to see him from different angles as compared to Fatima for whom Jinnah always remained an elder brother. Fatima had considerable influence over Jinnah but her main concern was his health. She knew all about Jinnah's physical and emotional health and took care that he lived and carved out a geographical boundary within the existing British India to name it as Pakistan.
However, Ruttenbai saw Jinnah from many angles. She saw him as a husband, as a father, as a brother and as a family man that took care of his relationships with his kith and kin. Cared for them. His relationship with his only daughter Dina has been cited in the book. It opens a new window through which one can peep through to see Jinnah as a family man. There were moments of intense conflicts between Ruttenbai and Jinnah over man to man relationship issues and many a time Jinnah had to concede to arguments that came from Ruttenbai who was a firm believer in maintaining human relations - with relatives, acquaintances and political partners.
There are references in the book that refute all charges about Jinnah's temperament and allays all allegations that have depicted Jinnah as an ill-tempered man whose relations with Ruttenbai had became frigid soon after their marriage. But the book has enough material to prove this allegation wrong. On the contrary it seems as if Ruttenbai had come in Jinnah's life as a reflector of his inner-self who could show the inner self of a man who had human weakness and care and compassion that is necessary for a balanced personality.
Biographers of Jinnah have recorded moments that were depressing and enough to leave Jinnah alone and in complete emptiness, dejection and hopelessness that he neither shared with his near and dear ones nor tried to find refuge in aloofness to shield himself against a mystifying world. He faced all such situations. According to his biographers he fought moments of depression alone and mostly emerged victorious. His biographers have attributed whatever success he achieved in his life to "public political support" but in the final analysis of available information on him it does not appear very convincing.
There may be arguments for and against this assumption but what seems plausible in the light of his biographical sketches he reached his targets through sheer hard work, commitment to moral standard of conduct and conviction that truth always prevails. There was a legal brain in the frail body of one of the most powerful and convincing man that the 20th century British India had produced. Ruttenbai had the ability to conquer this man who conquered millions of others.
A legal mind that would not act without finding his acts in conformity with well-informed well-judged beginning and rational conclusion, fell in love with Ruttenbai, twenty years younger than he was. He found her mesmerising and above all the explanations that rationality of thought would not support, he decided to remain relaxed. But she was there and Jinnah had to face her. Ruttenbai was a product of the right mix that defies all arguments - seemingly sane, but otherwise specious.
Though the book does not tell in clear words the role Miss Ruttenbai Dinshaw Petit, later to be remembered as Ruttie, played in cheering up Jinnah and taking him out of his emotional resolve to remain single. The way she supported Jinnah in taking a decision to marry her despite all odds - communal feelings, opposition of Muslim religious figures, resistance from her parents and the Parsi community and criticism from the Hindu community who called his idea of marrying Ruttie a misalliance is all a reflection of her courage and strength of character.
Ruttie had reasons to stick to her decision to marry Jinnah. She - despite being young and half the age of Jinnah - stood by her decision that she had taken at the age of sixteen and waited to be eighteen to reach the age of consent or maturity to decide about her marriage independent of the interference of her parents. This is a reflection of her strong character, iron determination and, to an extent a bold decision that Jinnah could not have taken in isolation.
After going through the book there is left no reason to believe she was immature and unable to take independent decisions. It allays allegations that Jinnah enticed her and let little space available for her to take independent decisions but the events would show that she took the decision and finally the marriage took place.
Though the ending of the marriage remains a drawing room discussion point even today, and is likely to remain so in the future, but the personality of Ruttie would always emerge as that of a strong-willed woman who always loved Jinnah and supported him in his cause of Pakistan and took care of a lonely man who had no other women in his life save her. She knew Jinnah was lonely even in the crowed of his friends, acquaintances, family members and political followers. He needed her and she was there to fulfil the need.
Also, there is enough material to prove the critics wrong who attributed loneliness, neglect and disinterestedness of Jinnah in Ruttie as one of the reasons that added to her illness and falling health. In fact Jinnah and Ruttie cared for each other in a different manner than is usual among the taken-for- granted couples.
Ruttie Jinnah: The Story, Told and Untold is one of those books that has documented events that led to romance between Ruttie and Jinnah, their decision to defy all opposition from the Petits, comply all legal requirements, ignore all criticism of communal, religious and age differentials to marry and prove their adversaries wrong.
All the events presented in the book are in chronological order. Seldom references are made to events remotely related but logically sequential. This has added a new dimension to writing biographical sketches of less known and much publicised people that have saintly stature in a community. But Ruttie is neither less known nor a woman without her own stature in the making of Pakistan. She was a support to Jinnah and an embodiment of determinations that lack in women in varying degree.
The book is also a brief history of Pakistan Movement, life of Quaid-I-Azam, other political leaders who were either opposed to Jinnah or in favour of his ideas, his friends and foes who were witness to the division of British India into two independent and sovereign states. The book has references and cross-references, quotations and statements to support facts.
More than one reading of this book is recommended for many reasons. One is that without Rattie, Jinnah would have remained a cipher code for his biographers.
Khwaja Razi Haider, deputy director of the Quaid-I-Azam Academy, has done a painstaking job. He has researched material for more than ten years and collected information hitherto scattered and about to be lost in the wilderness if left uncollected for some more time.
The book was originally in Urdu. As long as it remained in Urdu the English-speaking people could not take it's critical view. This is an irony but, nevertheless, it is a fact that can not be denied. This book is now available to those who have a liking for good books on their national figures. Haider deserves encouragement, recognition and appreciation for his exceptional contribution toward the existing historical notes and material on Jinnah and Ruttie.
Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi has published this book. The centre is mainly dedicated to research work. It should keep it up. Translation is a difficult work. It should have been done carefully.
Name of the book: Ruttie Jinnah: The Story, Told and Untold
Writer: Khwaja Razi Haider
Publishers: Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi.
Distributors: Welcome Book Port, Urdu Bazar, M. A. Jinnah Road, Karachi.
Pages: 194
Price: Rs 200
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