The orthodox bluff

For the past 10 years the orthodox lobby has been bluffing and misleading the Parsi community into believing that dakhmenashini has merely weakened and needs to be strengthened. Their hollow arguments are that vultures are only a secondary requirement and that the primary requirement for the disposal of the dead are the sun’s rays, even when there is clear evidence that in the absence of the scavenger birds, animal carcasses in the countryside lie rotting and stinking.

Another argument is that fire is polluted in crematoria, whereas in fact cremation is the most hygienic and sanitary method for the disposal of the dead. The orthodox maintain that electricity is fire and as worshippers of fire, cremation should be prohibited knowing fully well that there is no fire in electrical gadgets like radios, television sets, fans, lights and airconditioners.

They claim that no stench emanates from the dakhmas in spite of complaints from residents of nearby buildings and reports of unbearable stench in certain pockets of Doongerwadi from visitors during Farvardian.

The orthodox have claimed that the Doongerwadi trust deed of September 25, 1884 forbade the use of bunglis for reciting the prayers for the departed who have opted for cremation or burial, in spite of contrary opinions being expressed by former Attorney General of India, Soli Sorabjee and senior counsel in Bombay High Court, Rafique Dada who was specially engaged by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) to report on the legal provisions according to the said trust deed.

The fundamentalists should be made to realize that they cannot fool all the people all the time with their concocted stories and it is just as well that an Originating Summons has been filed in the Bombay High Court by three eminent men — Jamsheed G. Kanga, former municipal commissioner, Dr Aspi Golwalla, former BPP chairman and Homi Khusrokhan, former managing director of Glaxo, Smith and Kline, to undo the fabrications of the fundamentalists.

Dr P. D. SUNAVALA