Making young thinkers believers

In extracting the life of Cyrus the Great, Xenophon in his work Cyropaedia outlines the vigorous training given to Zoroastrian Achaemenian youth in order that they may emerge in life as the rightful inheritors of the Iranian ideal of upright, righteous, discriminating and just individuals — born to command and rule, as indeed the Achaemenians were, as the ancient world’s first great empire that ruled vast territories beyond their homeland.

The youth in those days were, as indeed Cyrus himself was, educated "in conformity with the laws of the Persians.” These laws eventually in Cyrus’s reign came to be acknowledged as "the laws of the Persians and Medes that altereth not.” There are several references to the inviolability and sacredness of these laws in the Bible when referring to episodes concerning Zoroastrian kings.

All youth for instance were sent to pass their manhood in "schools of justice” so that they could fulfil offices of rank and distinction with righteousness. Achaemenian society demanded an exacting standard, and a man’s weight was measured not by his own will, but by his adherence to the law, both religious and social.

Among the things taught were manners and public protocol in civic life and when at war. They were trained horsemen, skilled with the short sword and sensitive to their socio-religious code of life. Thus to urinate or spit or to blow one’s nose in public or bypass an elder without a salutation were seen as a breach of public decorum. They were also exposed as part of their education to all stratas of society and were made to deal with the ordinary foot soldier and farmer, as well as with men of rank and nobility. They received religious instruction from the magis and kings themselves were involved in acts of public worship of the sacred fire, before going into battle as is attested in history. They were seconded as apprentices with noble clansmen in different parts of Iran. With this training they developed an intense pride in being Iranian and that was synonymous with being a Zoroastrian and thinking as a Zoroastrian which was quite different from being Babylonian or even a Greek from Asia Minor. The sixth century society of the Achaemenians was emulated by their rightful inheritors, the Parthians, and in later times the Sasanians. These ancient societies provided the best training grounds for the youth and were in effect, the finest finishing schools of their times.

Readers may wonder why I have chosen to highlight a society lost in the fading light of times past, but it is essential to examine, although briefly, the early period which laid the groundwork for the present Parsi Zoroastrian society. Today the world over Parsi Zoroastrians have abrogated their responsibility to train and mold young adults into a Zoroastrian way of life. In the twin convergence of over-secularization and over-westernization, in the last 80 years, combined with growing religious plurality, Zoroastrianism as a way of life and as a living religion has lost its defined links with its historical past and has emerged poorer for it.

As a community based organization involved with religious education, it has been a policy at Zoroastrian Studies (ZS) to engage positively with children, especially with teenagers and young adults. At any given time in the year, ZS runs classes in five or six Parsi schools, and takes two to three adult classes and holds a number of workshops throughout the year. On an average we teach 400 Parsi children and adults every week. This gives us a fair idea of the strengths and weaknesses that are prevalent in the community and a perspective to judge the evolution of their relationship with the community and the development of their core values within society.

Most children enjoy an innate intelligence and therefore we offer a course of studies on religion which is logical and consistent with the conceptual structure, based primarily on an academic framework. Our teaching style is both narrative, and in the form of arguments that present propositions about the religion that they have never considered. This sharpens their critical faculties, nurtures strong conviction and deepens faith building. Young thinkers who become believers, with a faith grounded in strong conviction, find it easier to uphold the theory and practice of the religion, especially if it is anchored in understanding, knowledge and a wealth of cherished religious ideals. At their age there is an urgency to find a reason for existence and life. Questions such as "Who am I?” "Can I just promote good thoughts, words and deeds and still be a good Zoroastrian?” "Where have I come from?” "Why is there evil?” "What is there after life?” These and other questions need to be answered. If these questions can be tackled from a Zoroastrian perspective then half the battle is won in helping them on the road to becoming practicing Zoroastrians.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of our younger generation specific to Bombay where the largest concentration of Zoroastrian children in the world live? The most interesting to teach and train are those in the age group of six to 16 years who are wonderous about the religion and are a clean slate to work on. Their interest in religion is self cultivated and activated within them by curiosity and a desire to find answers about things religious. If their questions are answered in an intelligent way, there is awe, understanding and a wonderful suspension of disbelief that allows faith to grow. To such a group, if religion is taught well, it transports them to a different level of understanding and builds within them the basic structure of the religion. The drawback for this group is in effect their parents, who with little or no knowledge of the religion, persist in encouraging children to follow and worship religions other than Zoroastrianism. This leads to a dilution of the Zoroastrian religious identity and a confusion of facts on Zoroastrianism, instilled in the minds of the young through institutional training. There is also a tendency amongst parents to give classical Zoroastrianism a miss in favor of esoteric and cultic messages. Time and again we have to deal with children who are forced by their parents to dilute their faith and divide their loyalties by forcing their children to attend mosques, dargahs, churches, mandirs and poojas as part of their daily worship. Until 50 years ago this was a lower middle class phenomenon. Today this eclectic worship of various babas and other religions has crept into all the echelons of Parsi and Iranian society, leaving a fragmented understanding of the faith, a weak formative base and questionable allegiance to Zoroastrianism.

Poor exposure to world issues, an inability to systematically filter diverse information that encourages a process of independent thinking, failing to be conscious of global environmental concerns and normal civic duties, and most of all an untutored response to the preservation of our vulnerable religion and heritage, are some of the problems faced by the Zoroastrian youth.

Yet these very same children when transferred abroad are able to cope with the exposure and develop their innate talents and contribute progressively to society. But here again religion is often a low priority although schools play an overwhelming role in molding challenging perspectives. This is not done here in India.

The post teenage group in Bombay is harder to work with, specially if they have escaped religious training in their early years. However the name of the game is to challenge them with questions and propositions, however incredulous, and through it creatively expand the elasticity of the mind, and train them to offer possible solutions to problems, working from a base line of knowledge already built. The problems of this group are in many ways similar to the earlier group, except that their exposure begins to get wider and if nurtured can be channelled beyond the MTV arena, to play a productive role in the community.

It is at this young adult stage that noticeable indifference to community affairs takes place, especially if the right kind of religious base at an early age has not been given. At this level there is a drop in the number of young adults who wear the sudreh and kusti, and a corollary that follows is that they stop their religious communication with God through prayers.

There is also a tendency to take community infrastructure for granted and an attitudinal problem, in all likelihood inherited from parents, makes an appearance. They demand that the Bombay Parsi Punchayet should fulfil the role of a benign godfather constantly doling out funds and subsidies to the deserving and the undeserving. This has had a crippling effect on our youth. It obscures drive, inhibits initiative, creates either undirected aggression or its opposite, a total lack of drive, which prevents ambition from soaring. Those that are professionals and high achievers must recognize this malaise for themselves and not repeat the mistakes of the previous generation. So if they want a basketball court or lights for their baug, they must desist from going to the Punchayet or other organizations until they have garnered enough community spirit, to raise at least 50 percent of the funds needed, before they approach philanthropic organizations for financial handouts. A case in point is the Aga Khani community where the Aga Khan finances projects, provided 50 percent of the moneys for any project has already been raised by the community.

We freely criticize the poor who ask for doles, but do not find it morally reprehensible for our well-to-do, who have cars, homes, their own professional companies and yet approach the Puncha­yet and various trusts for doles, euphemistically termed as scholarship monies, when they wish to send their children abroad for studies. Today a South Indian family from the same economic background will take a bank loan for a house, or for studying abroad, and instill in their children a work ethic that demands rigor because they must repay their loans. This rigor and work ethic is missing in the Parsi/Irani youth today. An average Parsi, whether young or old, will first ask, "Why shouldn’t the Punchayet give us money?” To use a well worn analogy, a Parsi is subsidized from womb (B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital) to tomb (Doongerwadi) by community organizations and trusts. But because the rich also take advantage of this welfare system it is our real-time poor and the middle class, who with no influence with the powerbrokers of the community and no favors to redeem, get left out and suffer. If our youth are to compete and succeed in life, it is this attitude they must actively change and shun.

From the community’s side we have not provided the youth with role models that have in any way upheld the religion or have provided leadership to the young where religion is concerned. The great and good of the Parsi community relish in calling themselves Indians first and Zoroastrians second and thereby intentionally or otherwise downgrade the religion. The irony is that these modern secularists have no idea themselves what it really means to be Indian; they do not understand Indian culture, music or mythology. They have never read the Vedas or the Puranas, know even less of India’s history and therefore are hardly Indian themselves, except in a vague political sense and yet persist in sending out this misleading message at every community function.

They advocate a vague plurality of religious positions that has yielded an undifferentiated humanist philosophy based upon the erroneous assumption that all theologies are equally valid and should be accommodated in the process of worship despite significant theological and ideological differences. The promotion of these assumptions confuses the youth, demands multiple allegiances from them and the underlying message sent out to the youth, is the lack of confidence adults have in the truth of one’s own religion.

Yet it is admirable that despite these drawbacks the Parsi-Irani youth, if inspired, do rise to the situation. A case in point in recent times is the enormous youth turnout and active participation, during the shifting of the fire installed in the agiary at Godrej Baug and their avid interest in protecting and promoting the Doongerwadi system.

If we wish our religion to progress and prosper, we must convey to our youth, as Toynbee did in his model for the Jewish community, that the religion and the community can best be served by a determination on part of the youth to make every effort to retain their special racial identity, what we loosely call our Parsipanu. This determination should be founded upon the voluntary need to observe rituals and religious laws, to believe that the religion is worth defending, and that its traditions and practices are inviolable and need to be cherished, learnt and put into practice.

The youth are the community’s repositories for the future and have in their own Zoroastrian being, an ancient seminal wisdom which needs to be cultivated and matured so that they can stand in faithful defence of a religion and community that has given them so much.

Khojeste Mistree schooled at the Bishops School in Pune, and then studied in the United Kingdom. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the UK and holds an honors degree in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. Mistree co-founded Zoroastrian Stu­dies (ZS) in Bombay whose primary objective is the dissemination of religious knowledge. Since May 1994, he has been taking Zoroastrians groups on educational-cum-religious trips to Iran. Recently he initiated an Oral Studies Programme, by recording the living traditions of the Zoroastrians in the environs of Yazd, where he has also begun to promote poverty relief programmes.