Khatoon-e-Pakistan, Mother of the Nation,

Born: July 31, 1893, Karachi
Death: July 9, 1967, Karachi

Khatoon-e-Pakistan Mutarrama Fatima Jinnah was one of the most active women both in freedom struggle and in Pakistan politics. She not only supported freedom struggle by organizing and leading the Women Muslim League but also participated many important events along Quaid-e-Azam. She went with Quaid-e-Azam to attend round table conference in 1930. Soon after independence, she got involved for the welfare of Pakistani people. She headed and patronized several social organizations like Ojha Sanatorium, Karachi. She collected funds for the welfare of people in Kashmir.

Quaid-e-Azam singled out Fatima Jinnah right from the time he returned as a barrister to establish himself at Bombay at the end of the 1890s. "The only sibling with whom Jinnah established a close, continuing relationship was Fatima who enrolled as a boarding student in Bombay's Bandra Convent School thanks to her brother's munificent support." (Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan). Quaid-i-Azam encouraged the young sister whose education he sponsored to acquire the full professional qualifications of a dentist and eventually set up her own practice. After the Quaid's marriage in 1918, Fatima maintained a separate establishment. But in 1931 she resigned from her practice to join the lonely widower in England. "From this time, to his death, she abandoned all other interest, to his care, and his career." (Bolitho: Jinnah).

Fatima Jinnah. The Quaid-i-Azam's sister. His closest companion, always at his side. It is enough, but it is not all: Miss Jinnah is enshrined, but had she not deserved her place on the pedestal she would have been toppled long ago. Even more possible, her uniquely percipient and fastidious brother might never have had her constantly by him, very much as his shadow - her place in the sun.

Fifty years after his death, has Fatima Jinnah's figure lost substance: have most Pakistanis forgotten what Jinnah was all about? What should have been a living tradition is a lost one. But the glorious thing about Miss Jinnah is that she only has to be rediscovered, not reinvented. There is no dross to purge, nothing to gloss over.
The very nature of Quaid-i-Azam's achievements makes him awe-inspiring. It does not occur to Pakistanis to think of him as cold, for warmth is not what they expected of him. He gave them something much, much more. Quaid-i-Azam will always be mythic, he can never be of common stuff. But to a young person today, Miss Jinnah conveys very little, and the image can seem Dickensian: reclusive, old and rather scary in her deserted, crumbling mansion. She may have been the Quaid's sister, but that was an accident of birth, and so the young tend to think about other things and people that seem closer to their memory or are more exciting. Glamour, not dignity or strength of character, is what engages attention.
But today, more than ever, there is much to learn from the way Miss Jinnah lived and the examples she set. More perhaps than can be assimilated from the example of the Quaid, whose dimension is too enormous. His sister embodied his sterling virtues and principles on a scale that is applicable in the context of the ordinary. Besides, we owe it to him to honour, with some actuality of realisation rather than mechanical tribute, what Miss Jinnah meant to him personally and symbolised in the moment of history they shared. The Quaid was highly conscious of his sister Fatima as a role-model for women coming of age in the freedom movement with the thrilling challenge of consolidating a hard-won country ahead of them.