Dina Wadia, Jinnah’s Misunderstood Daughter
She defied her father for love and never lived in the country he founded. Those who knew her say that’s only half the story.
In the late 1990s, Akbar Ahmed called Dina Wadia with his first interview request. She responded with an unequivocal no. Ahmed, then a professor based at Cambridge University, was making a documentary about Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Dina, Jinnah’s only child, was living in New York, half a world away, and she initially refused to chat. “She was rather cold and had that steely coldness which I think reflected how Mr. Jinnah had treated his political opponents,” Ahmed told The Juggernaut with a laugh.
This year, Pakistan is honoring Jinnah on a scale like never before. The government has declared 2026 the “Year of Quaid-i-Azam,” or the Year of the Great Leader, to mark his 150th birthday on December 25. The public narrative is that Pakistan’s founder was estranged from his daughter because Dina married the wrong man. Like her parents, she married for love across religious lines. Like his father-in-law, Jinnah objected. “It amounted to a case of history repeating itself,” The Times wrote. But a closer study of their relationship reveals the depth of a father and daughter’s love, and what would cause it to break.