“Iranian intervention”

I have been silently watching the Parsi Irani Zoroastrian community being helplessly torn apart in a series of controversies which are pitting members against one another on a plethora of issues.

The latest news does not do us proud as an enlightened community. The trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) and several others have faulted our own Zoroastrian brothers from Iran who had graciously thought it fit, in their desire to put an end to the murky goings-on in the community, to offer their advice to the Zoroastrians of India on the method of disposal of the dead, based on their own local experience of dakhmenashini which has been totally replaced by burial in Iran for a major part of the last century ("Iranian intervention,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, August 7, 2007).

Let us keep the windows of our minds open. The photographs and CDs doing the rounds have begun to subject the Parsi Irani Zoroastrians of Bombay to a great amount of ridicule both within the community and outside.

Let us not forget that the Zoroastrians of Iran have very strong ties with their family members in India. Let us not pass judgment. After all, it is for us to accept or reject their recommendations. The Indian Parsis did look up to the Iranian Zoroastrians until a few hundred years ago. The Rivayats stand a mute testimony to that position.

We are a minuscule community and our brethren in Iran need our support. Can we not work unitedly in seeking solutions to our problems? Maybe together we can even revive our age-old system of dakhmenashini.

Let us put an end to our conflicts and nit-picking from both sides and close flanks and show the world a united front.

RUSTOM TIRANDAZ