“How trust-worthy?”

From the point of view of scholarly reasoning, sentimentality, emotion and western ideas like freedom of choice, the arguments in the Editorial Viewpoint ("How trust-worthy?” Parsiana, February 21, 2006) in respect of admission of non-Zarathushtrians into our consecrated institutions, in comparison with the Balaji Temple trustees, would look attractive. However, further study of our religion would show some major fundamental flaws in the foundations of that viewpoint.

First of all, the so called "navjote” of the Duas did not and cannot uphold any basic premise of Zoroastrianism. A navjote ceremony is not a secular matter but a religious matter and a significant religious event in a Zoroastrian’s life. In a secular matter, one can make a moral choice. In a religious matter one has to make a religious choice between what is religiously right or wrong. In this matter, the parents and the children had a choice of doing what is religiously right or wrong. They chose the latter by not following the path of religion given to us by our Prophet, which includes following the tenets of his religion.

One can sympathize with the two sisters who obviously have a natural attraction towards our religion from their mother. However the parents, knowing fully well the consequences of their actions in having a marriage outside their religious communities, against the tenets and practices of the religion, have unfortunately themselves placed their children in this predicament. Now, neither the parents nor the children can, in good conscience, ask the whole religious community to change religious laws for their convenience. Instead of blaming the community, the children should understand where the fault lies, and the parents, like adults, should accept their own responsibility in this matter.

The editors would be doing a great religious service to the parents, the children and the community if they could correctly guide and inform that a navjote ceremony does not make one legally and religiously a full fledged Zoroastrian. The ceremony only confirms one into the faith if one is born of both Zoroastrian parents. Otherwise, any Tom, Dick and Harry could have a navjote done and call himself/herself a Zoroastrian.

In the Jasame Avanghe Mazda kusti prayer recited during the navjote ceremony the recitor affirms three times that he/she is a "Mazdayasni,” and confirms that he/she is a Mazdayasni Zarathushti. If the person is not a Mazdayasni Zarathushti then the person would be lying and committing a sin against the religion during the very navjote ceremony he/she is participating in. The officiating priests praying the Patet Pashemani prayer, especially Karda 12, during such ceremonies, joining in such lies, may want to reconsider their position. Parents, priests and others should not make children lie and commit a sin, during such a solemn religious ceremony. Are such persons trustworthy?

Further, the editors should also know that in our Zoroastrian marriage ceremony, the priest announces that it is a marriage between a Mazdayasni Zarathushti male and a Mazdayasni Zarathushti female. How then can any Zoroastrian priest religiously sanctify a marriage between a Zoroastrian woman and a non-Zoroastrian man? He would, especially as an ordained priest, be committing the most grievous sin against the religion he has sworn to uphold. Two such individuals could have a civil marriage, but anything else is not a Zoroastrian marriage under the Zoroastrian religion. Children of such a marriage therefore cannot, unfortunately, claim to be Zoroastrians under our religion. Can such parents and children who then demand the right and recognition, and those who misguide them, be called trustworthy?

The Constitution of India protects and guarantees every religious minority the freedom to have its own religious laws and practices to function independently. No court in the land can interfere in this matter. The Hindu religion and the priests of a particular temple may allow outsiders into their temple, due to temporary secular pressure. However under the Indian Constitution they are not bound to do so. No amount of editorial jugglery will change that fact.

Let us consider if the persons who are now "demanding the right and recognition to be good Zoroastrian women,” and their supporters themselves can be considered "trustworthy.”

No Zoroastrian woman, born of Zoroastrian parents, would need recognition, nor would she demand the right to be considered a Zoroastrian woman. She does not have to prove anything. Only if she is like the person mentioned in the Editorial Viewpoint, and is not a Zoroastrian woman, would she have the immense need to prove it and the immense ego to demand such recognition and such right.

Will we now try to change even the wordings of our age old navjote and wedding ceremonies to suit the temporary whims of a few irresponsible people? Do these irresponsible people have any history or claim to trustworthiness?

One thousand three hundred years ago an enlightened Hindu King gave permission to the consecration of our first fire on Indian soil at Sanjan strictly according to our religious requirements. This permission was given because he and his Hindu religious advisors understood the significance of Dasture Dasturan Naryosang Dhaval slipping his jeweled ring into the bowl of milk. Just as the ring settled in the bottom of the bowl without disturbing the milk, the enlightened Dastur conveyed that his people would settle in the land without disturbing his kingdom. The Hindu king trusted us.

We Zarathushtrians have reinforced this trust for nearly 1,300 years, living peacefully, without proselytizing or converting, following our religion, scriptures, our rivajes (customs), long standing practices, religious ceremonies which have come down to us in unbroken form through oral and scriptural transmission. The enlightened scholars and savants of religious thought, even in the West, have marveled at our religious community’s ability, tenacity, grit and devotion to do this for 1,300 years and the trust we have earned for our community. No other religious community in the world has been this trustworthy.

Nowhere else in the world, except in India, have religious rights, institutions and age old practices of any microscopic minority, ever been so well protected by the majority religious communities as our religion has been by our Hindu, Muslim, Christian and other religious community brothers. This is because we are trustworthy and a threat to no one. Do we want to change that? Ask the Bahais, the Kurds, the Coptics who have faced religious persecution from the majority communities in their countries. Compare their fate to our most fortunate circumstances on the sacred soil of India.

It would be a mortal self inflicted wound and harakiri for the community now to reverse a 1,300-year-old movement which has given our community so much respect, honor, trust, religious blessings and material success. To give up our religious tenets and age old religious practices on the dubious altar of being "progressive,” sentimental emotions, and selective convenience of the few, is suicidal.

How miserable must be our mental state, that we Zoroastrians can even think of wanting to exchange this rich and priceless heritage, which is the envy of the world, for the exercise of one person’s dubious claim to a "right” and "recognition,” without any understanding of the greater responsibility of protection of one’s religion and community.

MEHLLI BHAGALIA

California, USA

The editors reply

Outside of India and Pakistan marriages between Parsi Zoroastrians are under civil law. A Parsi couple cannot be legally wed by a Parsi priest in North America or the UK. Does Bhagalia disqualify the children of all such unions from being considered Parsis and Zoroastrians?