Overt acceptance

"‘Small is successful’ applies to the Parsis per se but Delhi’s distinguished members have used their secular clout to create an enlightened sectarian agenda, including a greater visibility on the interfaith dais,” noted a report by Bachi Karkaria on the front page of The Times of India of August 21, 2003, the Shahen­shahi New Year. "Their fistful includes civil servants and soldiers, lawyers and judges, poet and puppeteer, doctors and cordon bleu cook. And bestowing her sprightly benediction over them all is the scholar-writer Piloo Jungalwala, pushing 90 and the community to stay close instead of closed,” added the article.

Referring to the Delhi Parsi Anju­man’s (DPA) policy of accepting the children of non-Parsi fathers and Parsi mothers into the faith, the write-up stated, "Now the Delhi Anjuman is working at demolishing the last exclusion zone and allowing non-Zoroastrian spouses into its fire-temple on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg.” Those who had read the article were wondering when the new decision would become effective. The denial of the report from Lt Gen (Retd) Adi Sethna, president of the DPA, was carried in the Delhi edition of the newspaper’s "Conversation with Readers” column of August 22 but not in the Bombay edition where reside the maximum number of Zoroastrians. Sethna had asserted, "The rules of the DPA are quite clear regarding the rights of non-Parsi spouses. They are welcome as members of the Anjuman in all respects except that they cannot use the religious facilities of the Anjuman or become trustees. Therefore, there is no entry of non-Zoroastrian spouses to the fire-temple. The trust deed of the temple permits only Zoroastrians to enter.”

Nearly three months earlier the "Jamshedpur Live” page of the Hindus­tan Times of May 18, 2003 had quoted Homi Bodhanwalla, former chairman of the Cursetjee Manockjee Shroff Agiary in Jamshedpur and currently vice president (east zone) of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India as stating: "I do not find anything wrong in allowing non-Parsis visiting the agiaries. It is just another place of worship like temple, church and mosque. When we can go into these places of worship, why can’t others visit an agiary?” He was then quoted as stating that when the Princess of Iran had wished to visit a fire-temple there, "the religious leaders had rolled the red carpet for her and welcomed her...If this is possible in Iran...why can’t it happen in India?”