Dina Wadia had said in an interview with BBC that she didn’t like the way her father—Muhammad Ali Jinnah—was “worshipped”, while talking about Jinnah’s reputation, and the manner in which he is commemorated across Pakistan.
Speaking about her decision of not residing in Pakistan, Wadia had said that Bombay (Mumbai) was her city – though she spent long periods in London as well as New York. She went to Pakistan for her father’s funeral in 1948, and twice more to visit her Aunt Fatima, Jinnah’s sister.
She said that she had been invited many times, by Benazir Bhutto and others, but had persistently refused – she didn’t want to be used as a mascot. She complained of leaders who had “robbed” the country and warned that democracy hadn’t flourished in any Muslim country.
Sharing independence-era memories, she said that Jinnah liked Gandhi; she said that Sardar Patel was “straight”; but she regarded Nehru as easily flattered and not her father’s equal; while Mountbatten, she said, was simply “untrustworthy”.
During the interview, she also spoke of her pride in Jinnah. Yes, they had quarreled over her marriage to Neville Wadia – who was born a Parsi but converted to Christianity – but they made it up, and often spoke and wrote to each other. She said her father rang her from Delhi to say “We’ve got it!” when he won the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. Her own temperament and personality, she reckoned, came more from her father than her mother.
Dina Wadia passed away in New York on Thursday at the age of 98.