Ruttie remained till the very end a liberal agnostic who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband in the many progressive and liberal causes he took up for India in his political career
Source/Credit: Daily Times
By Yasser Latif Hamdani | May 22, 2017
A few years ago I was amused to read in the newspaper that Nazaria Pakistan Workers Trust in Lahore was holding a meeting to commemorate the life of Maryam Jinnah as a model Muslim woman. I was amused because it was the first I had heard of a Maryam Jinnah. Upon further inquiry, it was revealed that she was married to the Quaid-e-Azam and was once known by her Non-Muslim name Rattanbai Petit. The problem: Rattanbai or Ruttie as she was most commonly known as never used the name Maryam. Her Nikahnama stated the name Rattanbai and she always signed her letters as Ruttie.
Her conversion to Islam was a legal formality at best. The law at the time required that both parties to an inter-communal marriage must either renounce their faith or one of the two parties should convert to the other party's faith. Jinnah being the elected representative of Bombay's Muslims could not afford to renounce his faith. Nor was a conversion to Zoarastrian faith possible. Indeed Jinnah had been arguing against this law in the legislature for at least a decade. He had most notably asked the government in 1912 to override objections of devout Hindus and Muslims to allow inter-communal marriage without such conditions. Still the law remained unchanged and Ruttie's conversion was the only way the marriage would have been possible.
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