Dina Wadia - Rift With Her Father

Rift With Her Father

Dina's relationship with her father became strained when Dina expressed her desire to marry a Parsi-born Indian Neville Wadia. Jinnah, a Muslim, tried to dissuade her, but failed. Mahommedali Currim Chagla, who was Jinnah's assistant at the time, recalls: "Jinnah, in his usual imperious manner, told her that there were millions of Muslim boys in India, and she could have anyone she chose. Reminding her father that his wife (Dina's mother Rattanbai), had also been a non-Muslim, a Parsi also coincidently, the young lady replied: 'Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?' And he replied that, 'she became a Muslim'".

It is said (by Jinnah's associate M C Chagla in " Roses in December") that when Dina married Neville, Jinnah said to her that she was not his daughter any more.It has not been corroborated by any other source. Jinnah allegedly disowned her and the father-daughter relationship became extremely formal after she married.But the legal notice of disowning never came which is essential for legal purposes. They did correspond, but he addressed her formally as 'Mrs. Wadia'. Dina and Neville lived in Mumbai and had two children, a boy and a girl. Dina's son Nusli Wadia became a Christian, but converted back to Zoroastrianism and settled in the industrially wealthy Parsi community of Mumbai. Dina did not travel to Pakistan until her father's funeral in Karachi in September 1948. Their relationship is a matter of legal conjecture and hair splitting as Pakistani laws allow for a person to be disinherited for leaving Islam (hence no claim on Pakistani properties of Jinnah) and Indian laws recognizing religion's traditional succession rules to operate.