Deadly campaign

I wish someone had indeed charged Dhun Baria in court, as suggested in the Hindustan Times. I would have contributed to the expenses for her defence. It would have been an ideal opportunity for the topic to be judicially settled.

I know from the Davar-Beaman judgment of 1908, that the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) is obliged to carry out the terms of the trust/s under which they hold Doongerwadi. Well and good.

Has no one heard of the cy près doctrine? Does no one remember Justice Chagla’s judgment when the Parsi charity schools could not attract enough Parsi pupils, and Lady Jehangir appeared in court? Were not the doors thrown open to other communities, with the proviso that "so long as Parsis seek admission, they must get admission, but if and when seats remain unfilled, others must be admitted”?

The BPP should themselves petition the court for cy près, because of their helplessness through no fault of their own. The plea, to be made under legal guidance, would be that the system has failed, driving many Parsis to municipal crematoria where the clergy deny them the prayers and rites of the religion. Therefore the BPP having failed for some years past to fully provide the disposal system enjoined by the religion, namely devouring by vultures, the BPP is already not fulfilling the terms laid down by the settlors. The current method in use, under the claim that "they are doing what the trust enjoins,” is not correct, because the settlors never enjoined "towers” only, and could not have dreamed of "towers and reflectors,” as reflectors were not in existence at the time the trusts were made.

Furthermore, all over India, the Parsi dead have been and are being disposed of by burial as there are few places having "towers and vultures” — the sine qua non of the original Zoroastrian method.

The beneficiaries of 46 acres of land at Doongerwadi are "all the Parsi Zoroastrians who die in Bombay and their relatives who must arrange for their disposal and their last religious rites.” These beneficiaries cannot, by law, be deprived of their benefaction for they are in a position to have the benefit by recourse to the cy près doctrine.

What we must ask for is the BPP to themselves order that until the system of devouring by vultures can be fully reestablished, through sufficiency of vultures in the skies of Bombay, the BPP must and shall enable the land held in trust for disposal of the dead, to be used for an alternative, acceptable method (acceptable to Parsis in India, and to the Government of our state as well as of the country) namely burial. Further the BPP will provide within one month, the facilities for the alternate method (of burial). If they are obdurate, we can tell the court that as the BPP cannot see simple reason we have come to court.

Baria has gone on record as saying that she asks for an alternate method in addition to the existing method. However I should like it to be decided on the evidence of expert witnesses, whether the existing method (which is not the method in operation when the trusts were made) should be suspended until such time as a sufficiency of vultures appear, that being the method the settlors had in mind when the land was settled in trust.

FEROZA SEERVAI

In England we have the safe electrical method. Our Parsi priests pray; then the priests ask us to rise, and the body is moved into the electric system. Later the authorized persons carefully remove it and place it in the electric urn. The method yields only the ashes of the dead person. These are disposed of as per the instructions from the dead person’s family. Usually, the ashes are buried and the gravestone is then placed on it.

During the early BC and AD period we did not have electricity. Now, we have this hygienic method which many modern priests safely approve.

RUSI BILLIMORIA

London, England