JINNAH LOVED TO EAT PORK

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of the Islamic state of Pakistan, loved to eat pork but did it on the sly.This has been testified to by his junior in the Bombay High Court, MC Chagla, in his memoirs, ‘Roses In December’. Chagla, also a Muslim, became Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and later Judge International Court of Justice at the Hague.

He says: “There is one story which I must relate about Jinnah’s election, ……... Jinnah and I were at the Town Hall, where one of the two polling stations was located.…… There was a lunch interval between one and two in the afternoon. Just before one o’clock Mrs Jinnah drove up to the Town Hall in Jinnah’s luxurious limousine, stepped out with a tiffin basket, and coming up the steps of Town Hall, said to Jinnah: “J”!- that is how she called him-“guess what I have brought for you for lunch.” Jinnah answered: “How should I know?” and she replied: I have brought you some lovely ham sandwiches.” Jinnah, startled, exclaimed: “My God! What have you done? Do you want me to lose my election? Do you realise I am standing for a Muslim separate electorate seat, and if my voters were to learn that I am going to eat ham sandwiches for lunch, do you think I have a ghost of a chance of being elected?”

"At this, Mrs Jinnah’s face fell. She quickly took back the tiffin basket, ran down the steps, and drove away."

After this Jinnah took Chagla to a restaurant and ordered “two cups of coffee, a plate of pastry and a plate of pork sausages.”

Jinnah’s marriage was quite unconventional according to prevailing standards. In 1917, when he turned 40, Jinnah fell in love with Ruttenbai, or Ruttie, the 17 year-old daughter of one of Bombay’s eminent Parsis, Sir Dinshaw Petit. They had met in the home of the Petits, where Jinnah occasionally dined, and also in Poona and in the hill station of Darjeeling. When he learned that his daughter and Jinnah wanted to marry each other, Sir Dinshaw took out an injunction that prevented Jinnah from seeing her.

Jinnah and Ruttie waited a year; in April 1918, when she was eighteen she embraced Islam and they were married. Sir Dinshaw never forgave his daughter and never saw her again. Even when she died he refused to attend the funeral or see the body.

Unfortunately the marriage was doomed from the start. In temperament they were poles apart. Jinnah was wholly engrossed with law and politics and had little time for his wife. Ruttie, naturally as a young woman, was fond of life and of the frivolities of youth. They gradually drifted from each other.

Early in 1928 Ruttie moved from her house to a room in the Taj Mahal hotel. The same year she died while her separated husband was not in town.

(The above photoghaph is of Ruttie Jinnah)

THE OTHER SIDE OF GANDHI

If Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi is to be believed his grandfather had a romantic relationship with a Bengali woman, Rabindranath Tagore’s niece, that at one time even threatened his marriage. This revelation has been made by him in his book Mohandas:A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire. The lady in question, Sarladevi, was a married woman, 47 years of age, having a teenage son. Her husband, Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhri, was an Arya Samajist who belonged to Lahore. The affair was at its peak between January and May 1920, and raised many eyebrows. Gandhi’s son Devdas and some others including C R Rajgopalachari, questioned this relationship and asked him to consider its consequences.

Gandhi finally terminated the affair with a letter to the lady saying, “I have been analysing my love for you. I have reached a definition of spiritual(marriage). It is a partnership between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is totally absent. It is therefore possible between brother and sister, father and daughter. It is possible only between two brahmacharis in thought , word and deed….

“Have we that exquisite purity, that perfect coincidence, that perfect merging, that identity of ideals, the self-forgetfulness, that fixity of purpose, that trustfulness? For me I can answer plainly that it is only an aspiration. I am unworthy of that companionship with you…”

It is surprising that Gandhi has not mentioned this episode of his life in his autobiography which was published in 1927. In his exceptionally frank autobiography ‘My Experiments With Truth’, the Mahatma has even spoken about his visit to a prostitute and his ill-treatment at her hands. In the chapter ‘A Tragedy’ he mentions the incident: “My friend once took me to a brothel. He sent me in with necessary instructions. It was all prearranged.The bill had already been paid. I went into the jaws of sin, but God in His infinite mercy protected me against myself. I was almost struck blind and dumb in this den of vice. I sat near the woman on her bed, but I was tongue-tied. She naturally lost patience with me, and showed me the door, with abuses and insults. I then felt as though my manhood had been injured, and wished to sink into the ground for shame.”

Charges of immorality had been leveled against Gandhi by a paper devoted to ‘the organization of Hindus’. Initially he ignored these charges but later repudiated these in his journal, ‘The Harijan’ of November 4, 1939. According to Gandhi his vilification began with his active campaign against untouchability. He wrote: “Some Sanatanists who used to help me and befriend me broke with me and began a campaign of vilification. Later, a very high placed Englishman joined the chorus. He picked out my freedom with women and showed up my ‘saintliness’ as sinfulness. In this chorus there were also one or two well-known Indians.”

He further said: “If I were sexually attracted towards women, I have courage enough, even at this time of life, to become a polygamist. I do not believe in free love---- secret or open. Free love I have looked upon as dog’s love. Secret love is besides cowardly.”

Ultimately the Mahatma prevailed over his critics who were trying to blacken his name.

(The above photograph is of Sarladevi)