Ruttie Jinnah: The Woman who Stood Defiant

by Saad S. Khan, Sara S. Khan

"Did Mohammad Ali Jinnah's wife, Ruttie, impact the creation of Pakistan? Did she have a posthumous influence on Pakistan's polity? Does her legacy still affect Indo-Pak relations? Ruttie Jinnah was a fierce nationalist in her own right and a proactive political companion to her husband. According to Jinnah's contemporary political leader Sarojini Naidu, Ruttie was the only one with whom he could truly be himself. Much to the dismay of her family and the Parsee community she hailed from, she had a love marriage with Jinnah. However, despite her undisputed influence on him, she remains an understudied figure in history. This vivid biography-put together over twelve years of research, interviews with historians, family members and lawyers of Jinnah's descendants, and visits to every place associated with the couple in India, Pakistan and England-provides an incisive look into Ruttie's life and legacy, bringing forth a novel and fresh understanding of Jinnah and the freedom movement."

Genres: History

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 7, 2021

Reviews

[Aamna Hashmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed! The woman who stood defiant.

[Pulkit Garg · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a must read for any Indian who wants to know the crux of the Pakistani side of the freedom struggle and the psyche of Jinnah. Though the writing style was a little... well dry and repetitive, the content more than made up for it.
The book not only gives a complete character portrait of Ruttie despite the scant resources, a marvelous feat, but also stands as a testimony of collaboration between Indian and Pakistani academics. We are also given a clear view of the politics of the time and Jinnah's ideologies and struggles with the Congress, despite his clear respect for Gandhiji.
All in all, a good read.

[Ekakshra · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book offers little insight into the life of Ruttie Jinnah and is based on literature which has been available for decades. Barely lucid, the cover page is grossly misleading since it endorses the book as a biography of Mrs. Jinnah. There is barely any information about her life and the book revolves more around India’s pre-independence politics and the impact of the wedding on Jinnah. The writing style is mundane and succeeding paragraphs and chapters rarely have any coherent relevance with the past pages of the book.

[Sukham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women-centric biographies have always been a point of interest for me. With most of our history being influenced or focussed on the male patriarchy, this is probably the first biography that I came across focussing solely on Ruttie. Jinnah was known to be extremely private when it came to his personal life, it must have been a difficult task to scrupulously piece together the narrative of a life that has been lost in time. Its complexity is underlined by the fact that the book took nearly 12 years to be completed!
With that being said, one thing I found a bit subjective was the topic of NEHRU-JINNAH-GANDHI arising constantly, which seemed a bit unnecessary as it had nothing to do with Ruttie. Moreover, the author kept focussing on Jinnah’s political life and seemed like he was trying to ‘justify’ Jinnah’s actions leading to Ruttie’s painful loneliness throughout their married life. This was the reason why it took me a long time to finish reading this book, with a promising start it turned out to be a bit of a disappointing read mid-way. But the effort is truly commendable on the authors part, to keep Ruttie’s legacy alive even after all these years.