Umbrella trust

A write-up in The Times Of India of April 26, 2005 refers to the Banaji Limji Agiary and the Maneckjee Sett Agiary, both situated at Fort, Bombay completing 297 and 272 years respectively. While the fact of their being in existence for close to three centuries would naturally be a cause for celebration for our minuscule little community, there is also cause for concern. The article quotes city historian Sharada Dwivedi, "These structures are so inherently a part of our history that they belong to the entire city and not just the Parsis.” She further stresses the need to help the trustees restore and preserve these religious places. Adds conservation architect Neera Adarkar, "These are precious buildings. At a time when the Parsi community is shrinking, it is the responsibility of the majority communities to look after its interests...”

It is thus clear that other communities are watching us, our institutions. While I have not the slightest doubt that the ladies quoted in the above article are well-meaning and authori­ties in their chosen profession, the fact remains that a small community like ours should not encourage what may, at first, appear to be assistance and which could later just as easily lead to interference from its sister-communities however well-meaning and innocent such assistance might appear.

The consequences of harboring such interference by out­siders, however well-meaning, could prove to be detrimental to our community’s interests in the long term. A prime example of this can be found in history if one studies how The East India Company started by settling petty disputes among the natives of Hindoos­tan which eventually gave the British a toe-hold in the political affairs of the era which in turn enabled them to rule over India for close to 200 years.

Don’t we as a community possess the resources within the community to conserve and enrich our legacies of heritage? It is high time the community leaders, as a whole, took a unified stand to protect, conserve and enrich our community’s structures of worship which even otherwise are being eyed as easy pickings by the builder-community in cahoots with some trustees of some of our fire temples.

In my opinion, the best way of doing this would be to form an umbrella-body, say an apex trust which would bring to­gether all the trusts that are in charge of the various atash behrams, agiaries and dadgahs whose sole objective would be to form a cohesive and unified policy to protect, conserve and enrich our places of worship. At the same time, the structure of such an umbrella-body should be such that member-trusts could retain their individuality in terms of freedom in managing the places of worship as they deem best.

It would be far more economical, beneficial and effective if one umbrella-body on behalf of all the individual community places of worship were to approach the municipal authority or the concerned government department for protection under the heritage norms instead of each agiary-trust undergoing the same exercise separately and failing in most cases.

Knowing how easily our community can be divided on ideo­logical lines, it is quite possible that it might be difficult for all the trusts that manage a place of worship to come to­gether under an umbrella-body but if the trustees truly place the interests of the community as a whole above individual interest, then I think this may be achievable.

Forming a world body can wait — what with all the con­troversies it has raked up. Instead let us focus on forming an umbrella-body to care for our places of worship. This is of far greater urgency and importance. Initially even if five or 10 fire temple trusts can get together, several others will follow for the benefits of joining will be many.

KAYOMARZ PATEL