Tajik 3,000th celebrations

While it is universally acknowledged that UNESCO declared 2003 as the 3,000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture at the urging of Tajikistan, founder of the Mazdayasnie Monasterie, Dr Meher Master-Moos reports that she was the only Zoroastrian officially present at the hurried one day celebration in Dushanbe on Septem­ber 5, 2003. Tajikistan, it will be remembered, was once an integral part of the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian empires.

Tracing recent Tajik history after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Master-Moos recalls their jubilation and desire to revive ancient glory. A delegation of seven scholars and a member of Parliament visited India in the summer of 1992, seeking coopera­tion and support from Indian Zoroastrians. They sought assistance in creating a religio-socio complex on the lines of the Delhi Anju­man’s dharamshala/agiary pro­perty and mobeds to teach them rituals and perform navjotes. The first anniversary of the free Tajik Republic in 1992 was celebrated with the convening of the first Avesta World Conference which Master-Moos says she attended along with a delegation of eight persons from the UK, Pakistan and India. In December 1992 a planeload of 39 ministers, bankers and government officials led by their prime minister visited India. They sought Indian enterprise in general and Zoroastrian en­trepreneurs in particular to help industrialize Taji­kistan and develop its trade and commerce.

However, soon thereafter a civil war broke out in Tajikistan and continued for four years. Then and later, the community failed to respond to Tajik expectations, notes Master-Moos. Even the air tickets for Ervad Jehangir Turel and Dr Peshotan Peer who were willing to attend the 1,000th year celebration of Firdausi’s Shahnameh in 1994 in Tajikistan were not sponsored by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP)/Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India.

While the Zoroastrians dallied, Muslim funds poured into the land. Over 600 masjids and mosques were constructed within six months of Tajik independence thanks to the government of Iran. The Aga Khan’s similar efforts led to the Tajik Government grant­ing several acres of land to build a Khoja Jamat Khana Cultural Center and hold the Nazeer Khushroo 1,000th anniversary celebra­tions in 2003 in Badakshan, Dushanbe, Khorogh and Kubbodian, writes Master-Moos.

Though the Tajik president had personally requested UNESCO to declare the Zoroastrian third millennium international cele­brations the participating countries could not focus on a date after Iran said it was unwilling to hold the event on March 21. Master-Moos alleges that when the Aga Khan’s institute in Dushanbe became aware of the UNESCO declaration they redoubled efforts to ensure the celebration of the rival Nazeer Khushroo event in September. By the time the Zoroastrian lobby awoke to the situa­tion in late August, most days in September, when Tajikistan celebrates its independence, had been snapped up by the Khojas and the Zoroastrians were left with one day: September 5, claims Master-Moos. Probable participants in the celebrations from South Asia as well as Europe and North America learnt of it too late to be able to attend, she notes.

Master-Moos, who has been a frequent visitor to Tajikistan, carried with her some Zoroastrian publications, kustis contributed by NarYman Dubash and Sohrab Master of Poona and US $ 3,000 towards the construction of a Zoroastrian center of which US $ 2,000 had been donated by BPP chairman emeritus Jamshed Guzder and the rest by Bhavik Patel, a Gujarati businessman who accompanied Master-Moos to Dushanbe, and herself.

The celebration of the 3,000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture was inaugurated by the minister of culture K. O. Olimov. The invited foreign scholars and guests included Azarakhsh Hafi­zi, an Afghan scholar residing in Germany, non-Zoroastrian Irani­ans from California Masoud Sepand and his wife, Dr Masoud Mirsha­hi from Paris, Yazdan Manouchehr from Holland and Master-Moos. About 18 speakers addressed the 100-member audience, all in Persian or Russian with the exception of Master-Moos who spoke in English. Volume I of the Yashts coauthored by Master-Moos and Prof Rustom Fuzaylov was officially released at the function by the President’s represen­tative A. Rahmonov. Master-Moos writes that she also presented an afar­ganyu and read out Guzder’s message.

An illustrated book with pictures of yazads and ameshaspends discovered in an old fire-temple building excavated in Tajikistan was also released along with a book of poems from Zarathushtra to Borbad. A stage performance of the message of Zarathushtra was said to have been enacted by the leading actors of the country. Simultaneously an operatic rendition of Rustom and Sohrab was offered at an adjacent theater.

On September 8, "at a glittering function held annually at Borbad theater,” Emonali Rahmonov, President of Tajikistan "castigated the intellectuals for not giving him sufficient (and) proper support for reviving the ancient original culture of Tajikistan and declared the year 2006 as the official celebra­tions for the revival of the ancient Aryan civilization and culture,” writes Master-Moos.

In the city of Khujand where the Tajikistan Technological University is located Master-Moos claims to have met many persons of old Zoroastrian stock wanting to revive the religion despite having been Islamicized since the time of Timur. Now Avesta is being taught as part of the university curriculum in Dushanbe and Khujand, she adds.

"It is upto the Zoroastrians worldwide to lend a timely helping hand to the Tajiks, to revive our ancient common faith and culture. If the Parsis worldwide continue to remain apathetic and indifferent, we will lose our people to Islam. This is the clear writing on the wall, 12 years after independence that I observed during these celebrations,” warns Master-Moos.