Jal R. Patel

Jal Ratanji Patel was an Indian physician, who attended to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan,^[1] during the years the latter was being treated for Tuberculosis.^[2] Patel, who was born into a Parsi family,^[3] kept Jinnah's disease a secret which had impact on the Partition of India. In his book Freedom at Midnight, Dominique Lapierre claimed that Patel had handed over a confidential file pertaining to Jinnah,^[4] and that Patel kept his patient's condition a secret on the patient's advice.^[5] The Government of India awarded Patel Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1962.^[6]