Quaid and Ruttie
By Dr Asif Javed
Williamsport, PA
“Pakistanis sometimes enjoy the delights of gossip more than the science of history, and they are already weaving legends about Jinnah’s name,” wrote Hector Bolitho, the first biographer of Quaid-i-Azam (QA), back in 1954.
Years later, KK Aziz was to deplore our tendency to “place QA on a pedestal and revere him”. That QA’s was an extra-ordinary life is beyond dispute. For those who need some convincing, just two examples may suffice:
“He is young, perfectly mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with dialectics, and insistent upon whole of his scheme…Lord Chelmsford (Viceroy) tried to argue with him, and was tied up into knots. He is a very clever man. It is an outrage that such a man should have no chance of running the affairs of his own country,” wrote Montague, the Secretary of State for India. He was referring to Quaid iAzam. Stanley Wolpert, the American historian and a biographer of his, may have paid the Quaid the ultimate tribute by crediting him with “changing the course of history, altering the map of the region, and creating a nation state - all three of them”.
But there was more to QA than some of us would like to know. He had been a young man once and had the same passions that other young people do. There are aspects of his personal life that are rarely written about. His biographies by Hector Bolitho (1953), Stanley Wolpert (1980) and Khalid Hasan’s book, based on KH Khurshid’s papers (2001), have some interesting revelations. As one reads them, a pattern begins to emerge: an extremely hard-working, disciplined, dedicated life, completely focused on the goals that he had set for himself. You also notice his admiration by women. A few examples:
“Mr Jinnah was one of the handsomest men I have ever seen; he combined the clear-cut, almost Grecian, features of the West, with Oriental grace and movement.” The above comment is from Lady Wavell. Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan was also smitten, “The first time I saw Jinnah, he captured my heart”.
Another of his admirers was the Cambridge-educated, poetess, Sarojani Naidu. Qazi Essa narrated the following to KH Khurshid: QA was once asked if he had ever kissed a woman outside his marriage. He mentioned an incident from UK, from his student days, when he had been expected to kiss a woman in a game but declined on the grounds that it was prohibited in his culture to do so outside of marriage.
The enormously talented and popular Sarojani Naidu once resided at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. How she paid for that most expensive hotel was the subject of all kinds of gossip. She was not wealthy but did have wealthy friends. The future president of Congress and Governor of UP used to write love poems to QA. Rumor had it that she had a crush on him. But as far as he was concerned, the nightingale of India sang in vain.
After his return to India from UK, a young QA settled down in Bombay and devoted himself to his law practice. It took him about three years before success came. Besides law, his only other passion was politics. Having worked with DadabhaiNoroji and later Gokhle, he was seen as the rising star of Indian politics, an ambassador of Hindu-Muslin unity. But “there was no pleasure in J’s personal life. No interests beyond work. Never a whisper of gossip about his private habits,” writes Wolpert. At that point, Rattan Bai (RB) entered his life.
The story of QA and RB’s romance and marriage has been written about often, and will not be repeated here. But the events after their marriage are discussed less often. Wolpert has given some details of their rocky marriage:
A spoilt child who had once been the center of her father’s universe, Ruttie had been effectively disowned by her family. Mercurial, dashing, impulsive, and lonely young Ruttie found herself daily with more time than she could possibly devise ways to spend…Ruttie was precociously bright, gifted in every art, beautiful in every way…she seemed a fairy princess…For J married life was a solemn duty: for his young wife, it was also an opportunity for pleasure…J had to adapt himself to a social life too merry for his nature…The differences in their ages, and their habits, made harmony impossible.
Chagla, one of QA’s legal assistants, witnessed some of those moments:
In temperament they were poles apart. MAJ used to pore over his briefs every day. I remember her walking into J’s chambers while we were in the midst of a conference, dressed in a manner which would be called fast even by modern standards, perch herself upon J’s table, dangling her feet, and waiting for J to finish…J never uttered a word of protest, and carried on with his work as if she were not there at all. No husband could have treated his wife more generously…Just imagine how the patience of a man of J’s temper must have been taxed by so demanding, so lonely a wife.
On another occasion, Ruttie came to see QA, unannounced at Bombay Town Hall with a tiffin basket and told him that she had brought lovely ham sandwiches for lunch. A startled QA had to remind his naïve wife that he was contesting a Muslim separate electorate seat and could not afford to ignore the religious sensitivity of his voters. A visibly upset Ruttie departed.
QA might have realized by then the gross error of his judgment in marriage. Ruttie and QA separated, and she travelled to Europe accompanied by her mother. There were failed attempts at reconciliation. DiwanChaman Lal, a friend and a fellow Barrister was with QA in Paris and noted:
J is in a despondent mood…he is the loneliest of men…I had always admired Ruttie so much: there is not a woman in the world today to hold a candle to her for beauty and charm. She was a lovely, spoiled child, and J was inherently incapable of understanding her…In the evening, I said to him, where is Ruttie? He answered, “We quarreled: she has gone back to Bombay”. He said it with such finality that I dared not ask any more
Here is QA’s reaction to Ruttie’s death:
When an old friend called, to describe his wife’s last hours, he saw a cold, discouraging look in J’s eye… J had endured all he wished of emotional relationships, and he permitted no one to disturb his disciplined, celibate, recluse habits.
Bolitho narrates an incident from Bombay when two young men were the guests of QA. One night, as they were about to go to sleep, there was a knock at their door by QA who surprised his guests by a conversation, not about politics, but about his life in England, and his early years in Karachi. As he was leaving, he said, “I wish that I had a son.” There one finds a lonely man who may have been missing the comfort and intimacy that only a spouse could provide. These were the times when his wife had died and Dina, his daughter, had moved in with her late mother’s family.
Fatima Jinnah (FJ) spent most of her adult life looking after QA. There are hints that the ever present FJ became too possessive and might have contributed to the rift between QA and Ruttie. Begum Liaquat reported to Wolpert:
She (FJ) hated any woman he ever liked. Oh, how she hated Ruttie! I think she must have been jealous of us all! We used to call her the wicked-Witch!
Wolpert wonders whether FJ’s intense dislike of Liaquat Ali Khan and his intelligent and beautiful wife might have resulted from their persuasion that had brought QA back to India from England. Begum Liaquat reports that once in her presence, when her husband dared to speak to QA of his (QA’s) loneliness and asked him to consider re-marrying, QA smiled at Begum Liaquat and said, “I will if I could find someone like BRLAK”. So here was yet another hint that QA longed for marital happiness that had eluded him. Did the domineering sister become a hindrance to her brother’s remarrying? One has to wonder!
After Ruttie’s death, Dina had lived with her father and aunt FJ in London, where she attended a private school while QA practiced law at the Privy Council. He adored his daughter and pampered her. It turned out that Dina had inherited the strong will of her late mother. She eventually became estranged from her father and married a Christian. The end result was the same - another failed marriage. Aside from a well-publicized visit to Pakistan a few years ago, Dina spent the last decades of her life in Greta Garbo like seclusion in New York City. In the process of writing her esteemed father’ biography, Wolpert did seek an interview with her; the appointment was cancelled by her at the last hour for unclear reasons. A BBC correspondent did manage a short visit but was not allowed to record anything or take pictures.
In the final analysis, it seems that the brilliant parliamentarian, and one of the shrewdest lawyers in the whole British Empire (Wolpert’s words), failed himself in his choice of a wife. QA, the master of cold-blooded logic, a man of iron discipline, who as a young man of sixteen had ignored the temptations of London, made a terrible choice and paid a heavy price, as did his future generation. It seems mind boggling. Perhaps Henry James was right when he wrote: Never say you know the last word about any human heart. Close to home, Sultan Bahoo, the Sufi poet, from the land of HeerSeyal, may have said it even better:
Dildaryasamundroondoongay
Kaundilandiyanjaneyhoo
(The writer is a physician in Williamsport, PA and may be reached atasifjaved@comcast.net)
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