Which way to Parsi identity?

The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City by Jesse S. Palsetia. Brill’s Indological Library, Volume 17. Pub­lished in 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Pp: xv+368+16. Price: Not mentioned.

How the Parsis have survived and prospered as a community in India, how they have used the various opportunities and changes in their social and political environment to better their own condition and how through it all they have maintained their identity, forms the bedrock of Palsetia’s thesis, even as he demonstrates how the concept of community identity has itself metamorphosed from early insularity to a pluralistic outlook. For, as Palsetia demonstrates, the advent of the community into Bombay’s urban setting was a major milestone from which all else followed. Hence the work traces the major ideas and events which shaped Bombay’s growth as much as the community’s reactions as it evolved from its original rural preoccupations to assume the kind of position that made Mahatma Gandhi comment in 1909, "...it is this community which holds power in India. Bombay is the real capital of India and it owes its prosperity mainly to the Par­sis.” Today, though demographically, financially, politically and socially depleted, such is its fervor of discussion and debate that, in Palsetia’s words, "it refuses to see itself as a dying community.”

Palsetia: historical analysis

"The ability to foresee the avenues to opportunity and wealth, to accommodate themselves to changing political reali­ties, and the willingness to provide for their fellows commended the early inhabitants of Bombay as leaders,” writes Palsetia. These founders of great families offered employment and welfare to their coreligionists, benefiting from their labor, earning the respect due to a benefactor. Unlike the power structure of the community in rural Gujarat, where the leaders had largely been priests, the leadership now came to be vested in those with material resources and government contacts acquired by dint of hard work, tact and loyalty. Rustamji Dorabji who rallied the residents of Bombay and its Koli fishermen to the town’s defence against the pirate attack of Muslim Sidi of Janjira at a time when a cholera attack had decimated the British garrison, was a case in point. His father Dorabji Nana­bhai had been a tax collec­tor, initially under the Portuguese and later under the British. Rustamji’s derring-do earned him the right to collect taxes and he was honored with the title of Patel (chief). His son Cowasji Rustamji Patel played a prominent role in the development of Bombay and in the service of the community.

The wealthy traders of all communities, known singly and collectively as the sethias, constituted the urban social and cultural elite. Many of the early Parsis settled in the Fort area, not too far from where the sethias resided. Palsetia also points out the very urbanized nature of these Parsi families’ landholdings. Their main commercial activities comprised the procurement of goods, local and overseas trade and financial brokerage. Their involvement in coastal and Indian Ocean export trade led to close contact with European traders as consignments were often made in each others’ vessels. This opened avenues of communication and the ability to leverage political and economic developments to the benefit of their personal fortunes.

Intercommunity cooperation under British rule, innovations such as joint stock banking and insurance, the institution of the Bombay Share Brokers’ Association, new trading patterns and new markets, all contributed to widening community perspectives. Jamsetjee Dorabjee Naegamwalla proved himself capable of rail­way construction, laying the Bombay-Thana line and thereafter, the railway line into the Western Ghats for the GIP Railway. By the mid 19th century came the spinning and weaving mills.

The wealth generated by industry was ploughed into agiaries, towers of silence or aramgahs all over India. The Camas, the Petits, the Readymoneys and the Tatas joined the Wadias, Banajis and Jejeebhoys in spreading benevolence within and without the community and in the civic infrastructure of the city. The phi­lanthropy, in turn, generated inter-communal respect, titles and moral preeminence.

The Punchayet adjudicated disputes and settled social and religious questions for the community including problems arising from marriage or inheritance and, as long as it "acted in conformity with the interests of the majority of Parsis, (remained) a formidable tool of social control and community cohesiveness.”

The petitioning of Government for redress of grievances had been a familiar feature with the Parsis under British colonial rule. However, they found themselves rebuffed when they sought, along with other Indian communities, redress in law against conversion, to set 21 as the legal age of majority for children to decide their religious rights and to disadvantage those who converted in terms of their rights of inheritance of paternal property. Disabused from their sanguine belief in a special relationship with the British, the Parsis found themselves in need of political agitation, intercommunity cooperation and educational reform. "Uniting for mutual defence against the proselytism of Christians,” Parsi children along with their Hindu and Muslim counterparts were pulled out of mission schools. While "the essential value of an English education” was not in doubt, it was now pursued in Parsi schools, beginning with Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy’s Parsi Benevolent Institution.

As the Parsis contributed to the spread of education in Bombay, they evolved from community leaders into civic lead­ers. Spearheading a "new elite class of interpreters, teachers and good Indian gentlemen” fostering close links with non-Zo­roastrians, they broke the community prejudice about mixing with other communities and set the stage for a "new spirit of secular intercourse with the Europeans.”

With the value of education seeping into the community, the new educated class began to assume importance and influence and aided the progress of social reform.

Palsetia traces the establishment and growth of the Parsi Press as a forum of debate and polemic. "It was the inward eye of criticism that emerged and not a widespread criticism of government.” While The Bombay Samachar avoided any staunch political or communal opin­ion, the Chabook, with a gift of cynicism, chose to expose cor­ruption, hypocrisy and pretentiousness and provided "a mixture of principle and parody.” On the other hand, the Jam-e-Jamshed upheld the values of moderation and conservatism. But the great­est Parsi run reformist newspaper was the Rast Goftar.

The Parsi genius for self-parody found its most memorable outlet in the nataks. "The rise of a Parsi run film industry marked the conjunction of the educational, artistic and business talents of the Parsis and contributed to the development of a unique cultural medium in India,” writes Palsetia.

The Rahnumai Mazdayasnan Sab-ha was created by Parsi refor­mists in an attempt to rejuvenate the Zoroastrian faith. "Unlike the traditionalists... the new generation of reformers re-inter­preted Zoroastrianism in a way that rejected all that did not meet the test of their rationalist view of the world... While all Parsis were of one mind in identifying themselves as Parsi, the exact definition and nature of that identity became a matter of debate.”

The mindset of petitioners and the defence in the Parsi Punchayet Case and the Bella Case — one dealing with conversion, the other with the acceptance of the child of an intermarried Parsi woman — mirrored the orthodox-reformist tug of war, each hoping that the judgment would codify Parsi identity the way they saw it. It was not to be. No British court was willing to bell the community and the controversy remains a part of the community ethos as proved in the heated debate that followed the tragic death of Roxan Shah in 1990. And in its aftermath, the emergence of a strong middle-of-the-road assertion, Palsetia traces the changing ideas.

The Parsis of India is a historical analysis of a community in endless transition, the details painfully culled from an enormous number of sources, presented with sympathy but without bias. It has earned its place on the reference shelf.

Ruining ourselves

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