Rattanbai Jinnah

Ruttie Jinnah developed intestinal ailments with cancer speculated to be the cause. She also suffered from depression, which was not well understood at the time. In early 1928, she moved into a suite at Bombay's Taj Mahal Hotel, leaving Jinnah home with eight-year-old Dina. That spring, while visiting Paris with her mother, Ruttie fell into an unexplained coma and almost died. Two months later, on 19 February 1929, Ruttie fell unconscious in her room at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai. She died the next day, her 29th birthday.

Muhammed Ali Jinnah is seen as a very private person who hardly showed his emotions, but he is known to have wept twice in public, and both occasions were connected to Ruttie. One of the occasions was Ruttie's funeral in 1929, and the other was in August 1947, when he visited her grave one last time before leaving for Pakistan. Jinnah left India in August 1947, never to return again.

By mid-1922, Jinnah was facing political isolation (almost reflecting Ruttie's own ex-communication from the Parsi Community), as he devoted every spare moment to be the voice of separatist incitement in a nation torn by Hindu-Muslim antipathy. His increasingly late hours and the ever-increasing distance between them left Ruttie feeling neglected. The infatuation had worn out, and Jinnah found the demands made on him onerous and vexatious. The change was not something which Ruttie could understand or accept. Her complex relationship with her husband can be gleaned by reading some extracts of her last letter to him:

When Ruttie moved in with her pets, she came to what was essentially an empty house. At the very beginning of their marriage, Jinnah surrendered his home and his closet to her. She was allowed to completely furbish the house exactly the way she liked it. In regard to Jinnah's wardrobe, Jinnah knew she had an eye for fashionable clothes, and allowed her to not only buy and coordinate his suits but also style his hair. Undoubtedly, Jinnah benefited from this arrangement as it presented him politically as a fashionable, modern Muslim man. They also made frequent trips to Europe and spent considerable lengths of time there. They made for a head-turning couple, not just because they looked an unlikely mismatched pair, but also because Ruttie aspired to define the acme of fashion and money was absolutely no object. Her long hair would be decked in fresh flowers, she wore vibrant silks and chiffons, accentuated by headbands and tiaras lavish with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Her main choice of dress was a sleeveless blouse with chiffon saris. Her daring wardrobe would not only shock the Muslim community, but also the British. Despite this, Jinnah doted on his childlike bride and indulged her every wish, and she was likewise content to be pampered by her beloved husband whom she called “J”. According to most sources, the couple could not have been happier in their first few years of marriage. Their only child, Dina Jinnah, was born prematurely on 15 August 1919. Dina was severely neglected by both her parents during the first 8 years of her life. Jinnah was preoccupied with politics, and Ruttie left their daughter to the care of nannies and servants. In fact, Dina was not given a name by either of her parents.

Since Ruttie was underage, her father was able to prevent the marriage for the time being, and the matter brewed for more than a year with no resolution. Ruttie was the only daughter (she had three brothers) of her parents, and they always celebrated her birthday in grand style. Despite the tensions within the family, they could hardly give her coming-of-age birthday a miss, and a grand banquet was held on the occasion at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. After the baronet had regaled his guests with a witty after-dinner speech, Ruttie stood up saying "Thank you, Papa..." and went on to drop a bombshell. She calmly informed the gathering that she had accepted a proposal of marriage from Jinnah, and that they would be married shortly; she asked the audience to wish them joy. She sat down to thundering silence, but despite the palpable outrage and opposition, a matter which had become so public could not be undone, and Ruttie could not be persuaded to change her mind. Even to the end, her parents could never reconcile themselves to the turn of events. Their objections were manifold: the difference of religion, the vast difference in age, the feeling of having been betrayed by a man they had always regarded as a friend. When the time came for Ruttie to abandon the Parsi community and be received into the Muslim community, she was disowned and thrown off by her family and had to leave her father's house forthwith. In 1918, only weeks after her 18th birthday, Ruttie nominally converted to Islam, married the 42-year-old Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in an Islamic wedding, and cut all ties with her family and the Parsi community. Ruttie did not practise her new faith, and in her letters to her friends years after her marriage she wrote that she did not have any religious creed, nor did she observe Islamic dress codes or dietary laws.

Jinnah's sister Fatima Jinnah, who had been a ward of Jinnah from age eight, since their father's death in 1901, was not amenable to the marriage either. In an attempt to make way for the new bride, Fatima was initially bundled off to another sister's home, but later had come to spending her Sundays at the Jinnah residence at South Court. The young Ruttie, already a mother at 19, found that she was no longer the sole recipient of Jinnah's attentions. It did not help that she and Fatima were of very different temperaments. Ruttie had even yelled at Fatima (considered dour, and very close in personal characteristics in her austerity and fastidiousness, to Jinnah) once, upon seeing her reading the Quran regularly, “the Quran is a book to be talked about, not to be read!” Jinnah enrolled Fatima in a Dental College in 1919. In 1923, he also helped Fatima Jinnah setup her own clinic in Bombay. Yet, this did little in bridging the gap that had developed between Jinnah and Ruttie.

Rattanbai Jinnah (née Petit; 20 February 1900 – 20 February 1929), also known as Ruttie Jinnah, was the wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an important figure in the creation of Pakistan and the country's founder. Additionally, Rattanbai Petit belonged to some of the most influential families of the Subcontinent, the Petit family, through her father; and the Jinnah family through her marriage. Her daughter Dina Wadia married Bombay Dyeing chairman Neville Wadia, of the Wadia family.

Rattanbai Petit (often informally called "Ruttie") was born on 20 February 1900 in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India, into the extremely affluent and well-connected Petit family that belonged to the Parsi community. She was the only daughter of the businessman Sir Dinshaw Petit, the second baronet of Petit, and his wife Lady Dinabai Petit. Her paternal grandfather, Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, the first baronet, had built some of the earliest cotton mills in India. He was also a philanthropist who aided the Zoroastrians of Iran who were persecuted by the Qajars. Her brother, Fali, who later became Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, the 3rd Baronet, married Sylla Tata, a member of the Tata family and the sister of J. R. D. Tata, who later became the longest-serving chairman of the Tata Group, one of India's leading business conglomerates.