The Wadia who shunned the limelight
In some ways, Dina Wadia, who passed away recently, could be considered the Indira Gandhi of Pakistan. Her father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was not only its first Governor General, he was also revered as the father of that nation.
Both women were born within two years of each other. Each was her father’s only heir. They both fell in love with Parsi men and married them. But, the similarities end there, probably because of the very different ways in which their fathers dealt with them.
In fact, it was their marriages that worked very differently. And, politics was the elephant in the room.
For Gandhi, it gave a surname that vested in her the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi on top of her own impressive lineage and made the acceptance of the masses much easier than it probably would have been.
She stayed close to her widower father during most of his 17 years as Prime Minister of India. That probably prepared her for a high-profile public life in the following years.
For Wadia, the marriage meant her relationship with her father would go into a chill so much that he would start addressing her as “Mrs Wadia”. Though she did exactly what her father did — choose a Parsi to marry amid a million Muslims — Jinnah’s politics had probably changed considerably between the two marriages.
She chose a very private life, far away from the media. And, even those she met were barred from writing about it. The late Pakistani businessman and columnist Ardeshir Cowsajee, who met her and struck a chord in “Parsiguj” during her Pakistan visit in 2004, had to be content writing about Jinnah’s dogs Essie and Peter. “What else we discussed must remain private in deference to her wishes,” Cowsajee wrote in a column titled “Her father’s daughter” in theDawn.
She transcended many eras and geographies: Born in London, raised in India with family ties and business interests here, tied eternally to Pakistan’s history, and spent her last years in New York.
The choices she made, the decisions she had to live with, the burden of history she had to carry all her life, and the fights she fought make her one of the most fascinating personalities of the subcontinent.
Yet, we know very little about her extraordinary life. From the exchanges, we know that she owned 603,220 Bombay Dyeing shares worth about ~12 crore today. There are numerous private holding companies, which control the group interests in listed firms such as Bombay Dyeing, Bombay Burmah, and Britannia. It is not clear if she had interests in any of these. We don’t know what her stand was when her son Nusli Wadia took control of the textile major, fighting her estranged husband’s plans to sell it. We don’t know what she thought of his role in the Tata-Mistry battle. We don’t know if she cared.
This column took interest in the Wadia family history and Dina’s mother, Rattanbai Petit, during last year’s corporate battle between Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry, talking about Wadias’ family connection with Tatas ( http://www.business-standard.com/article/ 116111400455_1.html ) and that with the Chaglas (http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/
A tell-all biography might be in order. Or, we will all be left quoting renowned jurist and former Union Minister MC Chagla’s half-century old masterpiece. It is up to her family, led by the son, to whom she was very close, to help us appreciate her life and times better. Or, were her wishes different?
In the visitor’s book at her father’s tomb in Karachi, Wadia wrote, “May his dream for Pakistan come true.” Perhaps, there is nothing else left to be said.