Justice Abbas Ali Tyab

Justice Abbas Ali Tyab of Baroda was in Mussoorie with his wife Amina and his youngest daughter Rehana  in the summer of 1935. Rehanna has been given Shri Nathji’s book, “Payaame Muhabbat” to read in Baroda and her heart had yearned to meet Shri Nathji. However she did not know where he was. Then she saw Shri Nathji’s book “Zahoore Haqueeqat”. At Cash Book Deport, in Mussoorie. Her heart thrilled with happiness when she came to know that Shri NAthji will be giving a lecture at the Railto Theatre. She told her father Justice Abbas Ali Tyab  about Shri Nathji’s sermon at Railto. The justice was not interested at first and stopper her daughter from going as well. But in a sudden change of heart he went there with his daughter. Shri Nathji was to deliver a sermon on Islam. His sermon that day was electrifying. Justice Abbas Ali Tayyab wept bitterly on hearing Shri Nathji’s lecture. 

Next day he came to Shri NAthji’s residence at Kahkashan and and said that you have awakened the latent thirst with me for Allah. Justice Abbas was a old man of 80 years when he met Shri Nathji. He said “ I am an old man, advanced in years, and I have seen the world. Hazrat, I am greatly worried about you! You are so innocent that someone may practice one of the greatest deceits of life on you! It was the love and affection of an elderly man for a young man. Shri Nathji’s pastimes with Justice Abbas and her daughter Rehanna are recorder in the Mahagranth - God Incarnate on page 312 -316, where we can read it at length. As per the Mahagranth, Rehana Tayab  left Mussoorie with her family. But Justice Abbas returned to Mussoouri next year in 1936. That year Shri Nathji had left in March for Mumbai with Hasellwright. So perhaps Justice Abbas was not able to meet Him then. He was very ill and died in Mussourie itself on 9^th of June. So perhaps when Shri Nathji came back from Mumbai and stayed at Dilaram Estate Justice Abbas was no more or may be was very ill to meet him again.

Justice Abbas Ali Tyab (February 1 1854 – June 9, 1936 ) was a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim and the grandson of the the famous Merchant Prince Mullah Tyab Ali Bhai Mian. He was an England-educated barrister, brought up in an atmosphere covered with loyalty to the Empire. He lived in England for eleven years and then moved on to the princely state of Baroda to become the Chief Justice of the (Baroda) Gujarat High Court.During those days, Tyabji was seen as a model of Britishness, leading a Western lifestyle and wearing impeccably tailored English suits. He was an early proponent of women’s rights, supporting women’s education and social reform. He broke with the prevailing custom of the times by disregarding purdah restrictions and sending his daughters to school.
Though a nationalist at heart, he would not stand adverse criticism of the British as people, or of the Raj. His moderate but simmering nationalism and his absolute integrity and fairness as a judge were widely recognized and lauded. even by leftist Congressmen and anti-British extremists. Justice Abbas Ali Tyab was popularly called Abbas Tyabji.
His life changed when he chaired a fact finding committee of the Congress to look into the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. His first hand experience of the British atrocities turned him towards Congress and he became an ardent follower of Gandhiji.
He chose to divorce himself from all the comforts when he was in his late 60s - a time when people usually take a backseat. He dumped his 'British lifestyle' and plunged himself whole heartedly into the freedom struggle.
Tyabji’s was a household name in the 1930s. One popular slogan then went like this: “Khara rupaiya chandi ka/ Raj Tayab-Gandhi ka”. Tyabji had an affectionate relationship with Gandhiji and they exchanged an unending stream of letters. The ‘ever-smiling’ Tyabji kept poor health in the later years. Advised to spend more time in the hills, he moved to a cottage, ‘Southwood’, in Mussoorie,  He frequented between Mussoorie and Baroda with his family.  He died in the night of June 9-10, 1936 at his cottage in Mussoorie, which has his grave, currently in a state of dilapidation. His cottage at present has a CPWD guest house in it. His wife Amina later died in 1940.
 I was very fortunate to get a photograph of Justice Abbas Ali Tyab which was clicked when he was in Mussoorie in 1935, the same year when he met Shri Nathji in Mussoorie. Also I got the current photograph of his cottage were he stayed in Mussoorie.  This photo was published in the newspaper Tribune on June 9 2011 in it’s Dehradun edition.
(Left) Abbas Ali Tyab in Mussoorie in 1935. (Right) The house in Mussoorie where Tyabji died on June 9, 1936. At present a CPWD guest house is running in it. Besides Rihana who was the youngest), Justice Abbas Ali Tyab had two other daughters. Sohaila who married Prof. Mohammad Habib after a love relationship in 1927 and Sharifa Begam whose photo I have given, which is taken from Abdullah Yusuf Ali book 'Life and Labour of the People of India' (published in 1907) In this book he describes the women members of the Tyabji clan: "One of them on a visit to London won a coveted prize at a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden. Several of them can give a good account of themselves with pen or brush. Music, too, has been cultivated - not only on the hackneyed piano, but on the Bin, an ancient musical instrument of India, the classical Vina of the Apsaras. In conversation, artistic talents, and social gifts, they would hold their own in the most cultivated society of Europe and America."