Assets and values

"How do you qualify Indian citizenship? Are religious minorities not Indian citizens? Parsis came here in 600 AD. They were allowed to prosper, leave aside survive! Can you tell me that ‘you have been in India only for 2,000 years so you do not have the right to be in this country?’” Jamsheed Kanga, advisor, Forbes Gokak, was participating in the first ever meeting organized by the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom (ICCF) under the auspices of the Hilla and Dosi C. Vakeel Endowment. The R. D. Birla Boardroom of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber witnessed a lively discussion on June 29, 2002 when moderates, liberal men of letters, administrators, educationists, professionals, social activists and businessmen like Cyrus Guzder, chairman of AFL Limited denounced the communal violence witnessed in Gujarat. The proceedings convened by Arvind Deshpande (honorary secretary of the Leslie Sawhny Program­me) highlighted that the media did not pay due attention to the calamity in Gujarat.

The remarkable Vakeel sisters were peace loving citizens who promoted values of communal harmony. An insight into their lives was provided by Bandra resident Kekoo Gandhy. While Hilla, the intellectual, was a journalist by profession, she assisted the elder sister Dosi who gave tuitions to earn a living. Although called the "gentle beauty” by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Hilla fearlessly opposed the Emergency. Her book, The Good Citizen, was so well received for the type of moral direction it gave that the Bombay Civic Trust went for a reprint as they found its contents quite relevant in today’s age.

On Thursday evenings their home on Turner Road saw friends and neighbors attend talks and poetry sessions conducted by Raja Rao, Prakash Tandon, Ashok Madgaokar, Mulkraj Anand, Ebrahim Alkazie under the auspices of Nalanda. There would be musical evenings too. The goodness of the sisters was experienced by many who valued their honorary services as an employment bureau.

Following Hilla’s untimely demise, Dosi continued with all the activities until she died in her nineties. Within a few years of Hilla’s death, when their small one-storied bungalow where Dosi was a tenant was sold and she was offered an ownership flat in exchange, she suddenly became a woman of property worth several lakhs! After consulting friends she made a will gifting her flat to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She gave gifts worth Rs 2,000 to each of her friends and well-wishers. With over a lakh of rupees in her account she set up a trust where, on the advice of ICCF, the principal amount was deposited in a bank and the interest earned used to conduct yearly seminars. Thus came into being the Hilla and Dosi C. Vakeel Endowment.

As reinforced at the seminar, values like truth should be taught to children from their younger days and concepts like majority-minority should be totally abolished. Right-thinking people who come together on a common forum serve as role models and inspiration to others.

Rashna Ardesher