Over the decades a good deal has been written on. Fatima Jinnah's contribution to national politics. The focus of most writings on and about her are almost exclusively on how she stood for, and beckoned the people to the pristine principles that had impelled the demand for Pakistan.
Many have focused on how she inspired the strivings and sacrifices in their quest, how she had enabled the beleaguered nation to own them up, how she had provided an unfailing source of inspiration to them during the 1950s and the 1960s, how she had helped to keep the torch of democracy aflame in the most un-fortuitous circumstances, and thus how above all, she had sustained the nation's quest for democracy during Ayub's semi-authoritarian rule.
Fatima Jinnah's contribution in the social development sector has, however, been ignored somewhat. This has largely been overshadowed by her political role despite the fact the she, along with Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan, made the greatest contribution in the realm of women's awakening and participation in national affairs and their empowerment.
Fatima Jinnah served as a role model for Muslim women in several areas as indicated by the various roles she had donned. If you glance at various vicissitudes of her life, you will see that from the beginning she had cast herself in the role of a modern Muslim female persona. This role calls for equipping oneself to shoulder tasks with the male counterpart at various levels; domestic, public and/or national and contribute fully and significantly towards accomplishing them.
Consider, for instance, her early life. In an age when few Muslim girls took to English education, she opted for modem education. When convent schools and boarding schools for girls were shunned, she enrolled herself in the Bhandara Convent School (1902) and, later in St. Patrick School, Bhandara (1906) from where she did her matriculation.
All the while, she stayed on her own in a hostel, much against the family's wishes, and Khoja traditions. She did her Senior Cambridge in 1913. At a time when few Indian (not to speak of Muslim) women went in for a professional degree or diploma and training, she moved to Calcutta in 1919, and enrolled herself at Dr. Ahmad Dental College.
Interestingly, she decided to stay on her own in a hostel, although her elder sister, Maryam, was living there with her family. Not only did she train herself as a dentist, with the Quaid's encouragement, she opened a dental clinic on Abdur Rehman Street, a Muslim locality in Bombay, in 1923. It was a rare phenomenon even for cosmopolitan and modernized Bombay.
During a period when social work was not the norm, even with educated and affluent women in India's society (except for the tiny Parsi community), she exhibited a passion for it. She worked simultaneously at the nearby Dhobi Talau Municipal clinic on a voluntary basis.
Although Fatima Jinnah had lived with her older sister during this period, her choice of a demanding profession indicated that she was a determined to be independent, and that she wished to lead a fulfilling life, instead of being a burden on the family. She wished to contribute to the social uplift and welfare of the community, rather than being a liability on it.
This demonstrated her tenacity and will power, her capacity for decision making, along with her penchant for social welfare activities and the economic uplift of the downtrodden women. This also indicates the progressive streak in her thinking in those days.
A streak that was required by women to become professionals and make themselves useful to the community and country at large, instead of wasting their talents. Even in those days, she believed that women should take part in national building activities, a view she propagated repeatedly later.
But life is much more than a mere career, as Hillary Rodham Clinton pointed out recently. When the family is in need, it comes first, however committed one is to their career. Thus, when Rutten Bai died on February 20, 1929, Fatima Jinnah sacrificed her career, wound up her clinic and took charge of Jinnah's palatial Malabar Hill mansion, and assigned herself to the most critical task of helping her illustrious brother out in terms of his personal needs, so that he could give undivided attention to the critical problems Muslim India was confronted with.
Additionally, she served as his confidante and advisor, she stood by him at all times, giving him hope and encouragement and trying to sustain him during the most difficult period in his life.
She remained his constant companion for the next twenty years (1929-48). Years later, Jinnah, who was seldom known to give public expression to his private feelings, acknowledged that his sister, "is like a bright ray of light and hope whenever I come home and meet he?'. He said this to a group of guests at the first official dinner, hosted by Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, premier and governor designate of Sindh, at the Karachi Club on August 9, 1947.
Interestingly though, despite her closeness to her brother during a time when he was almost the uncrowned "king" of Muslim India, Fatima Jinnah kept herself behind the scenes. She was content to live under the shadow of the towering Quaid.
She never utilized her vantage position to take to public office or public platform, leaving it to other women leaders like Begum Maulana, Mohammad Ali, Begum Aijaz Rasul, Begum Shahnawaz and Begum Salma Tasaduq, to assume leadership roles.
She was, of course, active in organizing women (e.g. as vice president, Women's Wing of the All India Muslim League and founder, All India Women Studies Federation, etc.), but she never aspired for public office, nor was she nominated by Jinnah for one. In this, both the brother and the sister broke the prevailing sub-continental tradition of dynastic succession in the political realm.
Despite Fatima Jinnah's cloistered approach and low-key profile for over a decade, the nation was able to discover in her a leader in her own right, after she emerged from the Quaid's towering shadow.
Thus, in the post-Jinnah period, she donned the role of a supreme guide and became the foremost symbol and advocate of Jinnah's cherished principles. In a real sense, leadership came to be thrust on her.
Fatima Jinnah did not come on to the public platform, but towards the end of her life, some 15 years after Jinnah's death and even then, she did so only at the imminent and desperate call of the nation. She headed the democratic movement against the incumbent Ayub regime in September 1964. And when she took to the public platform she did it with indefatigable courage and unflinching determination, whatever the odds, whatever the consequences.
Despite being a septuagenarian, she dutifully went through the strenuous campaign all the way - though it meant great discomfort to her personally, exhausting her physically and putting her under all sorts of hostile attacks by her opponents.
Indeed, the inexhaustible energy, the unrelenting stamina and the unflagging enthusiasm she displayed during the election campaign surprised almost everyone, including her arch-rival, President Ayub Khan. All this was made possible only because of her strength of character and conviction, and her determination of purpose. In all this, again, Fatima Jinnah served as a role model for Pakistani women.
People do not realize that just by accompanying Jinnah wherever he went during the l940s, Fatima Jinnah was teaching Muslim women to stand shoulder to shoulder with men during the freedom struggle. Numerous pictures of the period show Fatima Jinnah walking alongside Jinnah and not behind him. The message was loud and clear and it was on both the brother and sister wished to convey to the nation.
By 1945-46, the message to induce Muslim women to participate during the critical election campaign had sunk deep enough. Mian Mumtaz Daultana told me that almost one-third of the audiences in the election meetings in the Punjab comprised women. Women volunteers campaigned door-to-door in the urban areas, and he said, this made the Muslim League's success at the hustings possible.
Likewise, Fatima Jinnah's political role during the 1950s and the l960s helped a good deal in making women's role in public life both respectable and credible; it facilitated other women in later years to don public roles without hindrance.
Her candidature in the 196 presidential elections settled once and for all, all the tricky questions about whether a woman could be the head of a Muslim state. In the circumstances, it was her candidature along that could have induced a favourable fatwa from Maulana Maududi. And once that was acquired, the controversial issues ceased to exist for all time to come. This represents a singular contribution towards women's empowerment and their participation in public life in Pakistan.
Even otherwise, Fatima Jinnah believed that, "women are the custodians of a sacred trust - the best on the cultural and spiritual heritage of a nation." All through her, she called on women to equip themselves as best as they possibly could and play out their due role in nation's onward march.
Apart from leading the nation in its democratic quest at a critical hour in its history, Fatima Jinnah's genius lay in helping the development of a modem Muslim female persona, which would equip itself to face the tasks of national building and the dramatic birth of a new nation.
(The writer is HEC Distinguished National Professor, who has recently co-edited UNESCO's History of Humanity, vol VI, and The Jinnah Anthology (2010) and edited In Quest of Jinnah (2007); the only oral history on Pakistan's Founding Father)
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