“No world body please…”

Normally I would refrain from commenting on the editors’ response (which they have been good enough to make) to my published letter ("No world body please…” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, August 7, 2005). However, I am "breaching” my own norms because I do wish to understand your viewpoint as clearly as I can.

I think your overall position is that Zoroastrianism needs a global association based on Zarathushti values, and that the International Zoroastrian Organization (IZO) is the answer.

Further, that if it is just an association, each major constituent unit can retain its autonomy as, supposedly, in the (so-called) "Federation” of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India or in the United Nations (both examples cited by you), while cooperating where necessary to advance common values and concerns. That neither merger nor co-existence is involved, but an associative representative nexus.

Underlying much of this is the belief that intermarriage and conversion are unlikely to dilute or decimate the Zarathushti faith; on the contrary, this would prevent the Zoroastrian faith from prematurely demising, and that this is the answer to dwindling numbers.

Finally, that such an association would be based on the legitimacy of values, not on the orthodoxy of birth, and that of the two, the former is the superior criterion on which to build an association.

I don’t think I have got anything wrong, or excluded any significant viewpoint espoused by your publication in this respect. I write to you because Parsiana has always welcomed reasoned discussion of differing viewpoints.

Now, concerning the issue of a UN-type association, the decisions in say, the General Assembly, or in any of the specialized agencies or councils, etc are taken by majority vote. The only notable example to this is the Security Council when a state possesses what is called the "veto” power. The latter, of course, is limited to only a handful of nations. The minority view, otherwise, gets pretty much nullified in the UN as a whole, as in any associational nexus.

How would we be able to avoid the nullification of the minority position in, let’s say, the proposed IZO? Or, are we thinking of giving each of its constituents veto power, and bringing the Association to a standstill? But if, now or in the future, decisions are taken by majority voting, what would prevent the associated Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), in an ever growing Zoroastrian community, from being isolated as a minority constituent? What, then, would such a position of the BPP imply for the extensive assets held by it, and transmitted to it as a sacred trust to be used, for the most part, for the Parsis as a distinct ethnic community?

Second, are we sufficiently optimistic about our present or future BPP trustees? If most were, until quite recently, almost gung-ho about going global, how can we be sure that they still won’t, or that future BPP trustees will not? In short, what surety is there that BPP trustees, present or future, would never vitiate a sacred trust? As for enforcement through courts of law, ought we not to recall the celebrated words of the late Nani Palkhivala: "Entering the portals of the Bombay High Court is like entering the portals of eternity?”

And, in any case, if it is deemed that it would be extremely difficult to vitiate the terms of a trust, isn’t prevention better than cure?

Third, there is this ticklish issue of intermarriage and conversion. Insofar as our priesthood, and the community in general, have not formally sanctioned such practices, you could expect them to take place among the relatively educated and prosperous classes of other communities.

But if the formal "floodgates” were to be thrown open, would it be Zarathushti values, or Mammon’s, which would be the ruling associative motivation in this country? In an economically disadvantaged, and educationally uneven nation, one can imagine the pull which Parsi funds (and all else) could exert on the disadvantaged.

One should appreciate the fact that a religion such as ours, and the way of life it prescribes, can obtain zealous and true devotion only in a milieu that is uniformly highly educated and prosperous. In India, such formal impediments as we have been speaking of, serve to create such an "exclusivist” area for the true practice of the faith. This would not otherwise obtain.

The IZO, on the other hand, finds itself in a milieu which is in no need of such formal constraints. The milieu there, in short, is ideally propitious per se for the genuine practice of the faith. The relative probity of public life is probably the most fruitful of circumstances there in this respect.

The IZO, and its supporters, are naive in believing that two such differing milieus can be juxtaposed in a successful associative nexus. The circumstances that prompt our faith to be genuinely sustained there, without any such formal constraints, simply do not exist in this country. And our forefathers, in all their wisdom for over a thousand years, understood the latter circumstances, and succeeded in keeping the faith alive here; as their successors are continuing wisely to do in the present. Years down the line these stalwarts will be regarded as saviors of the faith, both in India and abroad.

The IZO, therefore, should give more seasoned thought to this issue if it is the survival of the faith that they are thinking of. Which is not to say the IZO should not be created. By all means it should be, and concentrate on looking after its own flock of neo-Zoroastrians, and ensure that allegiance to the faith is genuine to the extent possible. But it would be a mistake for it to wish to bring us, here in India, within its associational nexus, or for us to embrace such a nexus. That would amount to making a categorical mistake, with all its attendant ills for both, and, concomitantly, for the faith.

Finally, you seem to be enamored of values and frown on considerations based on birth. Can we, in all sincerity, contradistinguish "birth” and "values” in this simplistic way? Or, rather, in the real world, are they not intertwined – the equation between the two constantly shifting depending on circumstances and desirable effects?

Thus, for example, nationality and nationalisms, our multicultural sub-ethnicities, mundane matters like the issuance of passports and of birth and death certificates, and virtually every facet of public life, even in an age of increasing globalization. The equational interplay between birth and values is an ineradicable reality in all such examples.

In fact, ethnicities and localisms are marked features of a globalizing world. And is the UN, itself, not based on national representation, as much as the legal system of each country, the manners, customs, attitudes of diverse peoples, the canons of international law, both public and private? And this is just a random listing. The world cannot be pushed too quickly, and when it is not ready, in directions of one’s pure ideals. Other important, related considerations just cannot be ignored.

Thus, for all these reasons, the associational nexus which you advocate doesn’t seem all that convincing, and increasingly so, to many Parsis. Our homework has not been sufficiently done. We seem to be floating more on pure feelings and impulsive predispositions, rather than putting on our thinking caps firmly, and looking squarely at a critical situation.

All of which does not mean that Parsis are likely to shun their neo-Zoroastrian co-brothers and sisters abroad, especially when the Zoroastrian community expands in a milieu of high public probity and in uniformly educated, cultivated and prosperous societies. But it’s for the good of both the neo-Zoroastrians in these climes, and for ethnic Parsis, mostly in India, (or wherever else they may be), to co-exist in this free-floating manner rather than come within an adverse associational nexus, as harmful to both of them in the long-run as to their faith.

The formation of the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) should be a wake-up call for our liberals. Many among the Parsis are beginning to feel let down by the liberals in their midst, when they ought to be looking up to them. That should not happen in a community still replete with extraordinary talents and booming enterprise. The latter ought to constitute the community’s natural leadership.

But how can an average Parsi thus look up to it, when such leadership seems to show scant regard (even a kind of indolent ignorance) for mainstream community feeling? It either cocoons itself apart in an elitist manner, or gives support to journalistic fulminations, deficient in any sustained intellectual cogency, about the community’s so-called "orthodoxy:” facile responses to complex phenomena.

Of course, all of us must bend with the times, but are the so-called "liberals” sure they are not interpreting the times through the lenses of an outdated "liberal orthodoxy?” Are they really keeping up with the times?

Dr ASPY P. RANA

The editors reply

The International Zoroastrian Organization (IZO) is a recommendatory body. It cannot enforce resolutions. The world body constitution safeguards autonomy, as does the constitution of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India. Furthermore if a trust specifies that its beneficiaries should be Parsi Zoroastrians then this condition cannot be overridden by resolutions passed by other bodies. The present and future trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) or any other trust are bound by their constitutions and the laws of the land, not by a world body.

As regards "floodgates” being thrown open, with 3,000 people on the BPP waiting list for housing, what benefits can a convert expect? Further, since the trust specifies the recipients of their largesse be Parsi Zoroastrian how can they gain monetarily from conversion? As a matter of fact the greatest beneficiaries of government largesse are the schedule castes and tribes and other backward communities. So if money was the motivating factor in deciding religious affinity as the orthodox always seem to surmise, all Indians, including Parsis, would opt to belong to these classes.

Rana’s next premise that in educated and prosperous countries "the true practice of the faith” can prosper is not borne out by history. Nazi Germany was exceedingly prosperous and yet mercilessly murdered six million Jews. And in Northern Ireland Protestants and Catholics battled violently for over 30 years.

On the other hand, India with its diverse multicultural society has let a myriad religions coexist and prosper. True there has been bloodshed but on the whole there is religious tolerance. That is why the Parsis came to India and have flourished.

No one denies the importance of birth. Those who are born in privileged circumstances will in all probability fare better than those who are disadvantaged. The chances of intelligent parents producing intelligent children are greater than those who are less able. But should this be the criterion for admission into a religion? If Jesus Christ or Mohammed had followed these precepts, Christianity would have been probably restricted to Jerusalem and Islam to Mecca or Medina. Their lot would have been like that of the Parsi: dying or dead. Instead today they are the two most dynamic, influential and prosperous religions in the world.

In ending Rana states "all of which does not mean that Parsis are likely to shun their neo-Zoroastrian co-brothers and sisters abroad.” If this was the case then why would the main orthodox spokesperson Khojeste Mistree refer to them as "alto-faltoos (riff-raff)?”

There is a need for a body like the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) so that the diminishing orthodox voice can be heard. But WAPIZ needs constructive agenda. If its sole purpose is to be a spoiler, then it serves no positive objective. The task before the orthodox is in making WAPIZ a meaningful, relevant and constructive body that can articulate and implement the orthodox agenda.