Ruttie Jinnah: Her Decision To Marry Jinnah Owed A Lot To His Politics
By Saad S Khan with
Sara S Khan
20 January
2021
As Jinnah’s
political lieutenant, Ruttie’s decision to marry Jinnah owed a lot to his
politics, which is what had mesmerised her in the first place. Hence her
participation in Jinnah’s political activities began from Lucknow, well before
their marriage.
Despite her
father’s opposition, the young Ruttie attended the joint annual sessions of the
Congress and the Muslim League, held in the city in December 1916. Jinnah had
joined the All India Muslim League in 1913, reportedly on Gokhale’s insistence,
to bring Muslims into the fold of the mainstream nationalist struggle. Within
three years, he had become important enough to be elected as the All India
Muslim League president for the Lucknow session. It was in this capacity that
he signed the Lucknow Pact with his friend and Congress president Tilak.
It Was To Witness This Glory That Ruttie Had
Come Down To Lucknow From Bombay.
By early
1918, she was Jinnah’s wife. Within a year of their marriage, Mrs Jinnah
proudly saw the elevation of Jinnah as the overall president of the Muslim
League in 1919. Her husband’s new position meant that she would be seated with
him on stage during public meetings of the Muslim League, just like she had
been beside him in the Congress meetings.
Rattanbai “Ruttie” Petit
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Her
Westernised attire would sometimes provoke the mullahs or the conservative
Muslims. At the 1924 Muslim League annual session at the Globe Cinema, Bombay,
for instance, some people asked the organisers who the woman was. Jinnah’s
political secretary, MC Chagla, had to tell the objectors that she was the
Muslim League’s president’s wife, so they would be better off keeping their
observations to themselves.
The
incident is indicative of the fact that Mrs Jinnah was not just a passive
companion cheering from the fence, but would share the limelight as well. A
contrast can also be drawn with the Congress meetings, where her dress would
raise eyebrows – the Nagpur session four years earlier had shown that the
Congress’s mindset was not as liberal as the Muslim League’s, at least when it
came to women. But more on the Nagpur session in the following chapters.
Modern Attire, Both For Mr And Mrs Jinnah, Was
A Political And Not A Fashion Statement.
The couple
was never underdressed, something they believed Gandhi had introduced in the
public space. Both Jinnah and his wife staunchly opposed Gandhi’s antics of
equating nationalism with minimal clothing of locally made cloth. Mrs Jinnah was
frank enough about her thoughts on this, leading Kanji Dwarkadas to quote
another letter that Mrs Jinnah had written to him. “I feel you had no business
to be born in this world with ‘Dhoti’,” she wrote to him, adding that the
“correct setting for nature of such fine sensibilities is a Sari – or a skirt –
as the case may geographically require”.
One of the
reasons the Muslims stood taller, politically speaking, in their interactions
with the British was the dress sense the first couple had inculcated in them.
For decades to come, in any meeting between the three main political
powerhouses – the Congress, the Muslim League and the British government – the
latter two had their fine dressing to back them up in their arguments, while
the Congress representatives made political statements in homespun clothing.
In almost
all formal contact with the British government, Mrs Jinnah would be with her
husband as long as she lived. The visit of the then Prince of Wales (later King
Edward VIII, who had to abdicate his throne in 1936 over the Mrs Simpson
affair) in late 1921 provides an interesting illustration of this. His first
royal tour to India was boycotted by the Congress, which the Jinnahs considered
an unwise decision.
Greater
still was their opposition to the Congress’s resorting to protests that put its
supporters in harm’s way. By 17 November 1921, the clashes with the police had
left fifty-three Congress sympathisers dead and more than five hundred injured.
In contract, the Jinnahs’ commitment to always adhere to the law, engage in
constructive dialogue with the government and discourage anything that might
instigate violence, was very different from those of the apostle of
non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.
Mrs Jinnah Strongly Shared Her Husband’s
Disavowal Of Congress Politics.
She wanted
home rule but could not countenance unconstitutional means. Mr and Mrs Jinnah
find honourable mention in accounts of royal historians covering the tour. As
per British civil servant and historian Rushbrook Williams, “Mr Jinnah and his
beautiful wife, Ruttie, met the prince on many occasions. I am sure that the
prince learnt much from them.”
Mrs Jinnah
used to be part of Jinnah’s contingent at political activities outside the
purview of the Muslim League as well. One such incident recounted by a top
Khilafat leader, Adeel Abbasi, refers to a meeting of the Khilafat Movement,
where Jinnah was also invited. As the Jinnahs arrived at the venue, Mrs Jinnah
might have alighted from the car first and walked towards the entrance. The volunteer
at the gate asked to see her entry pass. In the meantime, Jinnah also arrived.
Ruttie and Jinnah
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She said to
him in English, “Jay, they are not letting me in, they want the entry pass.”
Without a murmur, Jinnah gave his entry pass to her and she went in. Jinnah was
left outside. When this came to the notice of the prominent Khilafat leader
Hakeem Ajmal Khan, he came out, apologised and brought Jinnah in.
The
presence of women in politics was so rare then that organisers had not foreseen
that a leader would come accompanied by his wife. It also shows how important
Mrs Jinnah’s participation in political activities was for her husband, who,
when the situation arose, deferred to his wife being admitted first.
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The Woman Who Stood Defiant: Ruttie Jinnah
Excerpted with permission from The Woman Who
Stood Defiant: Ruttie Jinnah, Saad S Khan with Sara S Khan, Penguin India.
Original Headline: Ruttie: This biography
reveals what we did not know about the woman who married Jinnah
Source: The Scroll In
URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/ruttie-jinnah-her-decision-marry/d/124113