Two Parsi physicians from Mumbai, Maharashtra, will reportedly be posthumously honored with Pakistan’s highest civilian award for having kept the illness of the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, confidential.
Physician Dr Jal Ratanji Patel and radiologist Dr Jal Dhaybho-Koo have been put forward by Islamabad for the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, with the award scheduled to be presented to them at a ceremony in March 2027. The nomination was announced on the social media platform X by Ahsan Iqbal, the federal minister for planning, development and special initiatives, who also chairs the Awards Committee.
According to Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s book ‘Freedom at Midnight’, both physicians reviewed Jinnah’s X-ray in 1946 and determined that he was suffering from advanced tuberculosis, concluding that he likely had only one or two years left to live.
‘Faithfully guarded secret…quiet but extraordinary service’
In his post, the Pakistani minister stated that both doctors had "faithfully guarded the secret" of Jinnah's terminal illness. "I feel honoured to have had the privilege, as Chairman of the Awards Committee, to nominate for the Nishan-e-Imtiaz two exceptional doctors—a physician and a radiologist—both from Bombay's Parsi community, who faithfully protected the confidentiality of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah's terminal illness," Iqbal wrote on X.
He stated that the doctors upheld “absolute professional confidentiality” during what he described as a “critical moment,” and noted that they had “performed a quiet yet remarkable service.” Iqbal added that their loyalty to their professional oath unintentionally became an important factor in the circumstances that enabled the creation of Pakistan.
Jinnah's illness: Why the secret was important to Pakistan's creation
Concealing the diagnosis played a crucial role in Pakistan’s formation, as emphasized by Louis Mountbatten, the final British viceroy who designed and implemented the 1947 partition.Pakistan minister Iqbal stated in his post that Lord Mountbatten later admitted he might have postponed Partition if he had been aware of the severity of Jinnah’s illness—an action that could have changed the trajectory of history and possibly endangered the establishment of Pakistan.
According to the account in ‘Freedom at Midnight’, a book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, the knowledge of Jinnah's illness could have possibly altered the course of events leading up to the partition.
“If I had known all this at the time, history would have taken a different course. I would have delayed the decision to grant Independence by several months. Pakistan would not have come into existence,” Mountbatten told the reporters later.
Historian Akbar Ahmed, in his book ‘Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin’, records that Jinnah had been suffering from tuberculosis since the 1930s, a time when there were no effective antibiotic treatments for the disease. “From 1938 onward, he repeatedly complained of the ‘tremendous strain’ on his nerves and physical strength. After that, he began to fall ill frequently, though the true nature of his condition was kept secret,” Ahmed writes. This closely guarded secret was known only to a small circle, including Jinnah’s sister Fatima and two physicians.
