Dr Jal Ratanji Patel was a highly knowledgeable and a well-decorated Indian physician; he was Jinnah’s friend, and attended to him for his tuberculosis and other health problems. Dr Patel was a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics, and was later the dean at the prestigious Grant Medical College in Bombay.
The other person involved in the ‘secret’ was Patel’s fellow Zoroastrian and radiologist, Dr Jal Daeboo. Both kept the medical files and X-ray films of Jinnah so confidential that neither the intelligence agencies nor the political parties had any knowledge of the illness. Pakistan perhaps owes its existence to the professional ethics of these two gentlemen. The govt. of India awarded Padma Bhushan to Dr. Patel for his professional services in the field of Healthcare Scienes in 1962.
It was much later when Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre were researching for their book Freedom at Midnightduring the early 1970sthat Dr Patel shared the confidential file with them.It was titled “M A Jinnah”; the X-ray film was sealed in an unmarked envelope, as mentioned by Dr Daeboo’s daughter, Homi. Jinnah was virtually under a death sentence while he went about bravely arguing his case for Pakistan at all forums with dignity and honour.
Lapierre would later recall: “One day we showed [Mountbatten] a report of our meeting with the Indian doctor who, in 1947, had treated the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Reading it made him blanch suddenly. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he gasped. ‘Good God’. When he looked up again, the blue eyes that were usually so calm were shrinking with intense emotion. He swiped the air several times with our sheets of paper. ‘If I had only known all this at the time, the course of history would have been different. I would have delayed the granting of independence for several months. There would have been no Pakistan. Pakistan would not have existed. India would have remained united. Three wars would have been avoided.'” What the Earl didn’t know then was that both countries were well on their way to becoming nuclear powers.
The other person involved in the ‘secret’ was Patel’s fellow Zoroastrian and radiologist, Dr Jal Daeboo. Both kept the medical files and X-ray films of Jinnah so confidential that neither the intelligence agencies nor the political parties had any knowledge of the illness. Pakistan perhaps owes its existence to the professional ethics of these two gentlemen. The govt. of India awarded Padma Bhushan to Dr. Patel for his professional services in the field of Healthcare Scienes in 1962.
It was much later when Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre were researching for their book Freedom at Midnightduring the early 1970sthat Dr Patel shared the confidential file with them.It was titled “M A Jinnah”; the X-ray film was sealed in an unmarked envelope, as mentioned by Dr Daeboo’s daughter, Homi. Jinnah was virtually under a death sentence while he went about bravely arguing his case for Pakistan at all forums with dignity and honour.
Lapierre would later recall: “One day we showed [Mountbatten] a report of our meeting with the Indian doctor who, in 1947, had treated the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Reading it made him blanch suddenly. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he gasped. ‘Good God’. When he looked up again, the blue eyes that were usually so calm were shrinking with intense emotion. He swiped the air several times with our sheets of paper. ‘If I had only known all this at the time, the course of history would have been different. I would have delayed the granting of independence for several months. There would have been no Pakistan. Pakistan would not have existed. India would have remained united. Three wars would have been avoided.'” What the Earl didn’t know then was that both countries were well on their way to becoming nuclear powers.
