Race and religion

The rules of logic I learnt at St Xavier’s, were a big hit with us students, as we tried to reach our own conclusions to suit ourselves...

"All Parsis are followers of the Zoroastrian religion,

Followers of Zoroastrian religion, are Zoroastrians,

So to surmise Parsis are Zoroastrians.”

Well this sounds logically cute, but in reality Parsis have a distinctive identity. We have our own religious rituals, beliefs, which are not similar with the others who profess to be Zoroastrians. Why did we leave Iran and come find solace, peace and prosperity in India? Why didn’t we find some other land to go settle... well... the reason is it was our destiny to be called Parsis and come settle here. We weren’t called Zoroastrians, we were Indian Parsis who followed the Zoroastrian religion. Period.

Since centuries we have been Parsis, and now suddenly a world body wants us to merge with them to strengthen and form a united single body. All fine on paper, but, why wipe out the term ‘Parsis?’ Are we to be engulfed by the world body? What about all the sacrifices and hardships our forefathers faced to nurture the Parsi name? Are we to silently let it be struck off from our persona?

Do we take it that the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India has failed to deliver and so it wishes to hand itself on a platter to a world body which operates from abroad?

Call the world body by the name "World Body of Parsi Zoroastrians” and I am sure all this controversy will meet with its rightful end!

Let’s not be dragged into an identity crisis. As it is we have enough on our plate.

RODA D. HAKIM

Baroda

Beware Zoroastrians, the new world body of Zoroastrians will culminate in a new race. The new world body will accept as members self-proclaimed converts from all around the world. These mixed members of different nationalities will become Zoroastrians following navjotes performed by aliens. They are pseudo Zoroastrians.

If the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) joins the new world body the following will be the after-effects on our future generations:

The future BPP president will be Ali Akbar Jafarey’s relative, a student of Pune University.

The head priest will be Jose Luis Abreu who was initiated into the Zoroastrian religion and is the current director of Latin America’s Spenta University Foundation. The other high priests of major cities of India will be pseudo Zoroastrians — Omer Ahmed, head priest of Bombay, Salim Sadam, head priest of Surat, etc.

Your descendants will eat snakes, lizards, cockroaches and rats which are full of vitamins as eaten by Africans, Cubans, Brazilians, etc.

At present Parsi/Zoroastrians have an identity. They can be identified from their physiognomy features: The typical Bawaji (Parsi) nose. Your great-grandchildren will have fuzzy curls, Negro type hair, jet-black skin. The blood in their veins will be mixed blood.

Your granddaughters will marry these pseudo Zoroastrians. So your grandsons-in-law will be Africans, Brazilians or Afghans. These people are very cruel. They will ill-treat your granddaughters or torture them, force them to wear burkhas. Talibans do not allow their women to take bath frequently. So your future women folk will be stinking and dirty. AIDS started in Africa and still has the largest number of patients. Do you want your progeny to be HIV positive?

These aliens will change our social laws. They may say ‘talak’ three times and give a divorce. No alimony will be given to the divorced.

These pseudo Zoroastrians will enter our fire-temples. India is a democratic country. If the BPP files a case against these aliens to stop them from entering fire-temples, the judgment will be in their (aliens’) favor. They will change our religious laws. No muktad ceremonies for the souls of our departed ones. No priest will wear jama-pichori but ugly aliens in different colored clothes will recite jumbo mumbo prayers, not as our priests do, in a melodious manner. Perhaps they will beat drums also. Our fire-temples will be like a drama stage. They will cut goats on Id day in fire-temples and our holy varasia will be extinct.

These converts will be more than 50,000 in number. These 50,000 aliens will have a right to vote: right over BPP funds running in crores, right over our properties worth mind-boggling amounts. The Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India has not constructed a single fire-temple, although it is a wealthy body and talks of religion. The Zoroastrian population of India will be approximately 50,000 in the next 10 years. It is better even if our community is small for small is beautiful. The smallest yet the best community of India, is known for its laudable work.

Our forefathers who were visionaries left us a legacy of culture to be passed on to our own future generations, not to be handed on a platter to these self proclaimed converts from all the countries of the world.

ROSHAN BULSARA