M. Reza Pirbhai. Fatima Jinnah: Mother of the Nation.

I had reservations when I saw the subtitle of this book, “Mother of the Nation,” which smacks of hagiography. I was encouraged, however, when the author contrasted his work with other books about Fatima Jinnah that used the honorific in question, Madar-i Millat. M. Reza Pirbhai seeks in this biography to place Fatima Jinnah’s life in the context of her times and to relate her actions to those of other well-educated Muslim women active in the Pakistan movement. He also seeks to separate her contribution to the history of Pakistan from that of her brother, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, also known in Pakistan as the Quaid-i Azam, or “Great Leader.” Honorific titles aside, Pirbhai’s work is engagingly written and thoroughly researched, using sources from public records and published works, as well as Fatima Jinnah’s personal papers, and reminiscences and autobiographies of her contemporaries.

Fatima Jinnah was the youngest of seven children of a Muslim merchant family in Karachi. Muhammad Ali was the eldest. He was away in England, becoming a barrister, when she was born. When he returned from his legal studies, he moved to Bombay to pursue legal practice. Following the premature deaths of both their parents, he became the head of the family, and in charge of Fatima’s education. He sent her to an English-medium boarding school for girls, taught by missionaries. Many Muslims opposed Christian education for their children, but Muhammad Ali, an Anglophile in culture if not in politics, felt comfortable in the Indo-Anglian upper-middle class of his chosen city, and saw such an education as part of his sibling’s proper upbringing.

When she was not in school, Fatima lived in the household of a married elder sister, but visited Muhammad Ali frequently. At this stage of his life, he was a member of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, negotiating a pact between the two parties in 1916, which earned him the title “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.” It was a label that did not last. Then in 1918, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, then forty-two, shocked Bombay society by marrying Rattanbai, the eighteen-year-old daughter of his Parsi friend Sir Dinshaw Petit. At about that time, Fatima determined to move to Calcutta, where she could live with another sister and attend a dental training program. This reflected the fact that educated Indian women, married or unmarried, tended to enter the teaching or medical professions. In India, social segregation of the sexes in education and medical care meant that there was an acute need for women practitioners of those professions. Fatima completed her dental studies in three years and returned to Bombay, opening a successful clinic.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the meantime, became heavily involved in nationalist political life, but his marriage foundered, given age and personality differences. Nevertheless, Rattanbai’s death from cancer in 1929 was a serious blow. Fatima moved into his house and functioned as a hostess and a secretary, and she also helped raise his daughter, Dina. In the early 1930s, Muhammad Ali moved to London, where he represented the Muslim League at the Round Table Conferences, 1930–1932, and practiced law before the Privy Council. Fatima closed her dental practice in Bombay to move with him and Dina to London. They remained there until 1934, when they returned to India at the entreaties of Liaquat Ali Khan, president of the Muslim League. From then until his death, Muhammad Ali Jinnah led the movement for Pakistan, helped negotiate the independence and partition of India, and founded the new state for the Muslims of India, before succumbing to pulmonary disease, a smoker’s fate.

Fatima had been the head of his household and political helpmate for about twenty years. She was by his side when he died and was devastated by the loss. Pirbhai devotes the latter half of this biography to her life after her brother’s death, and emphasizes the continuity of her efforts. In these chapters, in a summary history of Pakistani politics in the 1950s and 1960s, Pirbhai reports on the involvement of women, especially the careers and autobiographies of Jahanara Shahnawaz and Shaista Ikramullah, both members of distinguished political families from Punjab and Bengal, respectively. Their activity in electoral politics and diplomacy in the new Muslim homeland stood in contrast to that of Fatima Jinnah, who studiously abstained from politics. Nevertheless, she remained active in the women’s branch of the Muslim League, which she had helped to found. She also continued all her honorary positions and frequent speaking engagements associated with the social welfare and relief organizations that she headed, and maintained her philanthropy to benefit women’s educational institutions.

After General Ayub Khan overthrew the Pakistani government in 1958, Fatima for a tine approved his attempts to bring about stability and progress, but then became disillusioned by the increasing lack of democracy. She finally agreed to run against Ayub, as the candidate of the Combined Opposition Parties, for president of Pakistan in 1965. In her speeches, she revealed a vision of Pakistan’s future very close to that of her brother: a view heavily influenced by the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal, of the unifying force of a reformed Islam that could bridge the sectarian and ethnic divisions so prevalent at the time among South Asian Muslims. She lost the election. She died two years later of sudden heart failure.

Does Pirbhai succeed in his desire to write a biography that is not hagiographical? Somewhat. More difficult is his goal to separate Fatima Jinnah’s role and influence from that of her brother. Indeed, that is impossible. Her closeness to him in life, and her sense of duty to Pakistan after his death, meant that her life and work were inextricably linked to his vision. Even in running for president, she did not seek personal aggrandizement but rather a perpetuation of his cause.