How old, BPP?

In the very first line of your article "Bombay Parsi Punchayet: Adult franchise at last?” (Parsiana, October 7, 2006), it is stated that the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) decided, after 350 years, to move the Bombay High Court regarding universal adult franchise.

How did you arrive at the figure of 350 years when the BPP’s letterhead states: "Estd 1681”? This means that the institution will be completing 325 years in 2006, a milestone I have urged them to observe as a grand occasion — with no response from them so far.

DHUNJI F. LAKDAWALA

The editors reply

The exact date of the formation of the BPP is uncertain but Lakdawala’s dates are closer to the starting than ours. We quote an extract from Sapur F. Desai’s book The History of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet 1860-1960 regarding the subject. Desai was the former secretary of the BPP.

"Human goals and values to be realized must weave the population in a pattern of society, which may keep changing from time to time and which may need proper channelization. And that was what happened in 1673 when the first Pun­chayet was formed, and goals and values inherent in Zoroastrian teaching kept guiding those who had the destiny of the institution in their hands from time to time. We do not know who its first members were, but it is certain they had some sort of a constitution, albeit unwritten, which they called ‘bundo­busts,’ and by which they guided the course of the community. We shall see later that the first informal ‘trustees’ to hold funds of the Punchayet were appointed in 1823. They were also responsible for ‘bundo­busts’ in their times. One Mun­cher­ji Merwanji Naoroji publicly disowned those ‘bundobusts’ and said he and his family would not follow them. The trustees issued a stout rejoinder and ultimately Muncherji had to eat the humble pie and express his ‘contrition and sincere repentance.’ At the time of this controversy the trustees had stated in The Bombay Samachar of November 3, 1823 that the Punchayet was there from time ‘immemorial’ and ‘wherever there are Parsis there is a Punchayet and whatever the Punchayet does the Anjuman accepts.’ The Trustees then said: ‘For the last 150 years whatever the Punchayet has done the Anjuman has accepted.’ Dr Jivanji Modi, in his Parsi Punchayet ni Tavarikh, says that deducting 150 years from 1823 we arrive at 1673.”