"Revival, not survival"

J. K. Banthia’s frightening demographic statistics should send shivers down the spine of every right-thinking Zoroastrian who has deep concern about the future of our community.

It is now proved beyond any reasonable doubt that unless and until we take immediate drastic corrective actions, we will be a dying, if not already dead, community by the end of this century. Banthia’s assertion that the birth of a single Zoroast­rian child at the end of this century will be a cause for nation­al celebration should not be taken as a cruel joke but a fact in reality. It is high time we stop basking in the glory of our forefathers as their achievements were in a different era.

Do we wish to see vast idle immovable properties belonging to the community attract the capricious eyes of land sharks or to have large charitable funds for which there are no suitable applicants?

The solution to all the above problems lies in the change of our mind sets which first must be directed against the ill advice and dogmatism shown by our own priests and the unyield­ing orthodox gentry who refuse to accept the current realities. We need guidance from our respected priests purely on matters of religion and they must not dabble in areas concerned with demog­raphy, genetics, fertility, etc.

Our community, fortunately is blessed with several very prominent legal brains. I would request them to find ways as early as possible to amend our archaic laws to permit adoption, give full Zoroastrian status to every child born out of mixed marriage and to accept controlled conversion of suitable individ­uals into our Zoroastrian religion. The conversion from other faiths into our Zoroastrian faith is enjoined even in our Gathas. This could be an epoch effort to introduce much needed changes to save our community from extinction.

We should forget that Zoroastrians have any specific or superior bunak pasbani, tokham and khao as mentioned in the Vendidad, as at that point of time there was absolutely no con­cept or knowledge of what is presently known as genetics or revealed by the genome project. The gene of a Zoroastrian is in no way different from the gene of any other community member, as 99.9 percent of all the genes are common in a given species and have no molecular support for race discrimination.

I do hope that our young and upcoming generation will take these warnings seriously and strive to improve the eugenics and the existing excellent qualities of our community by preventing any further decline in quality and numbers. We are envied for being the most educated, intelligent, jovial, fun-loving, honest and dedicated minority community of India.

Dr M. D. DISAWALLA

Bangalore

In "Revival, not survival” (Parsiana, March 2004) Arnavaz Mama has quoted J. K. Banthia, registrar general and census commis­sioner’s gloomy prognosis for the fast dwindling Parsi popula­tion, not only as an eye opener but a very serious fatal warning. However, I am sorry to say that the suggestions put forward therein, as supported by Khojeste Mistree, of augmenting the present population by sperm banks, by marrying early and pro­ducing at least four children, are neither practical nor economi­cal today.

If we do not wish to become like the antique Incas of South America, the only way out is to allow Parsis, both men and women, who marry outside the community to take their children into our fold without any reservations. Mistree’s statement to preserve the race and not the tribe, as that will tarnish our ‘pure’ Zoroastrian blue blood, is not borne out by facts. It is not realized that only a minuscule of us came to India from Iran, and in this short time we could not have engineered our present population without marrying outside and including their children into our fold.

In fact this matter is so serious that, apart from inter-marriage and adoption, we may have to seriously think of even conversion, like Ali Jafarey of the Zoroastrian Assembly is doing in North America. I feel the time has come when, all our future meetings whether of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India, the World Zoroastrian Organisation, the Federation of Zoroastrian Anjumans of North America, or the various conferences we hold in all parts of the world, should have the declining population as its main and central theme, instead of wasting time in deliberating whether to use the Fasli or Gregorian calendar.

Brig (Retd) N. B. GRANT

Poona

Those two pages of photographs of mofussil Parsis, pages 118 and 122 ("Revival, not survival,” Parsiana, March 2004) show that at last, the powers that be have deigned to glance at the minus­cule community members who just won’t give up their ancestral homes for brighter lights and narrower place. The lantern in the photograph on the middle of page 118 is very telling. We (yes we) still have to take recourse to the ancient lanterns as the power is shut off regularly. If our elders would now debate on how to save these lands, houses, properties, help with advice — financial and legal, then maybe we could make our fellow Parsis happier, safer, more prosperous. For once let’s forget the calen­dars and intercaste marriages and children of such unions.

SOONU JAL

Neemuch