Silent majority

Fundamentalist Parsi groups in India, such as the one led by Khojeste Mistree, want to treat the Zarathushti religion as an elite and exclusive club. There are many critics, most of whom give voice only privately. But more and more are now beginning to appear in print.

What is termed the ‘indifference of the average Parsi’ may be only a waiting stance, waiting for the appropriate leadership. Some leadership has been provided by the out-married Parsi women and their leader Meher Amersey supported by the Wadia brothers in establishing a prayer hall for the families of the out-married. More such people should stand up and be counted among the so-called ‘silent majority.’ In the face of the general disapproval by the majority of Parsis to the decidedly irrational pronouncements of the fundamentalists, the silent moderates will look elsewhere for leadership, which will pass to the West and away from India. This might have been overlooked by the ultra-conservatives.

Our religion, once brutally suppressed by the Arabs in Iran, found sanctuary and flourished in multi-ethnic, tolerant India. Now that it is persecuted from inside by biased and narrow-minded people of our own community, who cannot or will not look beyond their noses, it will flourish again in the more tolerant multi-ethnic West.

JAMSHED R. UDVADIA

Lansing, Michigan, USA