She discarded the family, so how can she have the house now, asks Jinnah’s grand-nephew in an exclusive interview
MUMBAI: The most vivid memory Mohamed Rajabally Ebrahim, 75, has of visiting Jinnah House, is that of his father taking him to meet Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the sprawling Malabar Hill bungalow on Eid.
The memory is etched in a grainy, black-and-white photograph that shows a shy Ebrahim standing beside his impeccably-dressed maternal grand-uncle, Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, barely reaching up to his coat hem in front of the art-deco bungalow.
Sixty years after Jinnah’s death, Ebrahim has boldly locked horns with his aunt, Dina Wadia, Jinnah’s only daughter, to claim his “rightful share” in the 2.5 acre Jinnah House property, valued at approximately Rs2,000 crores. Refuting Wadia’s claim before the Bombay High Court that she alone is entitled to the property being Jinnah’s sole legal heir, Ebrahim has not only intervened in the petition filed by her but has also filed a separate petition stating that the Indian government has “no right to squat” over Jinnah House after the repeal of the Displaced Persons (DP) Act in 2005.
“Dina has maintained no contact with her father’s family,” Ebrahim told DNA on Saturday at his sea-facing Napeansea Road flat, which has walls lined with his wife, Fazila’s porcelain paintings.
“She (Dina) married (textile tsar Neville Wadia) against her father’s wishes and changed her religion. She discarded her family and now she wants to claim his (Jinnah’s) house?” Ebrahim asked.
He is bitter about the family being treated as “untouchables” by Wadia. Growing up in “near-poverty” in a two-room house in Dongri, he recalled how he gaped at the exquisite cakes and biscuits laid out in trays at Jinnah House during his visits there as a child. A self-taught man, who impishly peppers his conversation with French words “to confuse people”, his shift from Dongri to Napeansea Road (he purchased his flat in 1965 for less than Rs2 lakhs) rode the profits of his glass container manufacturing business. His son, Shakir, an avid tennis player, now looks after his Kurla warehouse.
Asked why he waited till now to stake his claim on Jinnah House, which the government plans to convert into a cultural centre, Ebrahim confessed, “Every time I told people that
I have a share in Jinnah House, they laughed at me.” It was only after Wadia filed her petition in 2007 claiming that Jinnah had never willed his estate to his sister Fatima, that Ebrahim started exploring his legal options.
He stated that he is entitled to 16th share in the property virtue of his mother, Ashraf, who was the daughter of Jinnah’s sister, Mariyam. Jinnah never forgave Dina and willed his estate to his youngest sister Fatima, who looked after him. After Fatima’s death, the property passed on to her sister Shirin, who died in 1980 leaving no will or heir. Thereby, children of Shirin’s sisters and brothers became her legal heirs.
Ebrahim has contacted his kin living in Karachi and Kolkata and is trying to put up a united front to get the property back from the Indian government. Wadia, according to him, is entitled to a 13rd share.
