Pressing for an invite

The World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) has had an inauspicious start, at least as far as the Parsi Press is concerned. As Berjis Desai’s "Parsi tari arsi” column in The Bombay Samachar (May 22, 2005) declared, "It is no secret that WAPIZ thinks that the present Parsi Press is scum. That is why they have decided not to invite the Parsi Press to the May 28 bash,” Parsiana decided to speak to its chief protagonist, Khojeste Mistree. "The committee decided it didn’t make sense to invite the Parsi Press (read Jam-e-Jamshed, The Bombay Samachar and Par­siana). "What’s the point of inviting people who always misrepre­sent us? There is not a word of unbiased reporting. Just because our aims and objectives don’t conform, the reporting is not fair or objective.”

When Parsiana challenged this statement, citing the magazi­ne’s reports on meetings called by the orthodox camp in the past and more recently against the development of the Dadysett Atash Behram property ("Development at Dadysett,” August 2004) and the world body ("Don’t create a monster,” November 2004) and noting that we often received letters acknowledging our propensity to provide all points of view, Mistree chose to quote the report on the Federation meet in Ahmedabad ("World body stymied,” January 2005). His contention was that we concentrated on the hullabaloo there to the exclusion of other topics. Anyone with the patience and the desire can check out that of the 14 pages devoted to the meet, more than 11 pages covered such topics as the discussion on demography, the formation of the world body, the upcoming Fourth World Zoroastrian Youth Congress, the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce, the activities of the youths and the reports of individual anjumans. Only three pages (including photographs) dealt with the disturbances, the first such in the annals of the all-India body.

But Mistree maintained, "Many of us feel you are extremely biased and very unfair.” At one stage he even likened us to a "bull in a china shop!... (the Editor) may shout from the roo­ftops that he is unbiased, but we know how objective he is!” Stating that the decision was one based on principle, Mistree said, "Whenever we’ve advanced an invitation to the community media...we have had (reason to be sorry)...We are happy with what we are doing... don’t believe you people are fair and objective...A time comes in one’s life (when) we don’t want to be told that what we are doing is wrong...So we prefer to call the general Press, the international media. They are unbiased, report both sides of the story.” When we accept the secular Press’ objectivity but question their in-depth knowledge of the Zoroast­rian community, Mistree prefers to tell us that the "constant barrage against us (Mistree and co-workers) has become counterproductive. People stop me in various places to offer support. The movement is growing. It is getting stronger. We are receiving support from around the world. People recognize that what we are doing is worthwhile...Everything we are doing is above board.”

When Mistree tells us that 50 of the Federation’s anjuman members are supporting him, we point out that apart from Poona and Ahmedabad, the rest are not only small anjumans (some com­prise barely six families), but most of them are innocent of the true forces at play in the convoluted discussions surrounding the world body and that Mistree is driving them on with unreasoned fears based on questionable numbers of converts to Zoroastrian­ism. As usual, he cites the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE), "published by such a respected house” as the Oxford University Press, as his "authentic” source of figures for converts. Parsia­na’s perusal of the WCE raises a swarm of questions regarding the authenticity of these figures (see "2.5 million Zoroastrians?” Parsiana, May 21, 2005). But we quote Jamé’s (May 22, 2005) simple question to Mistree: If he quotes WCE figures for other countries, why is he not quoting WCE figures for India? Why is he choosing to quote the Indian census figure instead?

Mistree prefers to gloss over that and attack Parsiana’s birth figures instead. We admit, and have repeatedly mentioned in our Milestones column, that our birth figures are from only two hospitals in south Bombay. We have neither the financial muscle nor the manpower to cover the small nursing homes in the northern suburbs where Parsis have now migrated but the magazine has always urged read­ers to send in their birth announcements accompanied by an au­thentic document like the birth certificate. "People cannot read the small print,” avers Mistree. When informed that the paragraph is part of the column and in the same print as the rest of the column, he still believes it should be large enough to catch peoples’ eye because "People keep quoting Parsiana figures.” He doesn’t like it when we tell him in so many words that that is because most people believe in Parsiana’s objectivity. However, Parsiana is ready to print all the births Mistree can find, provided each is substantiated with a munici­pal birth certificate.

"We don’t believe you people are fair and objective... You people don’t owe us a living... It will be a wonderful, special function. The voice of religion has not been heard on the lawns of the Royal Western India Turf Club in decades... We have to tell people not to come because there’s not enough place. Logically and practically we can’t open our doors to 10,000 people (about 1,000 to 2,000 people are said to have attended)...” Or for that matter to three Parsi journalists.