“Suspect scholarship”

Jamsheed Kanga’s article "Suspect scholarship” (Parsiana, October 21, 2008) exposes the futility of reviving an issue first aired in the columns of The Bombay Samachar very many years ago when I had brought Khojeste Mistree’s squalid piece in Irano-Judaica - II (Jerusalem, 1990, pp 227-254) to the attention of the then editor Jehan Daruwala. The matter was taken up with great energy and forthrightness by Dastur Hormuzdyar Mirza a little after, extracts from which Kanga cites. Mistree’s article still (dis)graces my shelves where it manages to remain out of sight — but never out of mind. Mistree did, in fact, attempt a response of sorts (in The Bombay Samachar) which was as pathetic as it was pusillanimous — a sordid act of self-denunciation overtaken by self-promotion.

Kanga, however, would wish that bogus scholarship to be refuted by the very three high priests who apparently endorsed Mistree’s candidature in the recent "historic” Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) elections. Goebbels outing Hitler? Kanga cannot be serious! My Goebbels analogy is not fortuitous, for that great communicator had steadfastly adhered to his odious principle of "repeat a lie often enough and most will mindlessly believe it.” Zarathushtra would have recognized in him an arch-dregvant.

With regard to this perennial suspect, I can only bemoan my self-inflicted destiny of researcher — it befalls to such as myself to read and re-read the productions of scholars and charlatans and weigh them up for veracity, value and authenticity. It is rarely an unhappy task. A circumstantial burden, however, comes in the not always welcome form of personal knowledge of such authors, and your readership must believe my mounting astonishment at the unabashed shape-changing indulged in by these communicators.

To recognize scholarship — or lack of it — for what it really is, one simply has to make the strenuous effort to build up for oneself the mass of solid evidence which constitutes the foundations of Zoroastrian learning. To instead rely upon the say-so of assorted sidekicks and acolytes who themselves are ignorant of it and wholly dependent on hearsay, is to invite precisely the kind of drivel which Kanga has placed in the mouth of the starry-eyed Yazdi Desai.

In sum, if the Parsis of Bombay, Khergam, Belgaum, or wherever, wish to embrace the kitsch Parsiism churned out by Mistree and his coterie, then they deserve what they get and should put up with it. We altu-faltus, who have never accused Mistree of being Zoroastrian, remain happy in our ignorance of his version of dhongidoxy, and should persist with the inspired teachings of Zarathushtra — the very teachings which the likes of Mistree, Firoze Kotwal, and, sadly it now seems, Kaikhusroo Jamasp-Asa too have openly rejected. O come back, you learned 19th century priests!

Hopeless as they may sound, Lowell’s lines: "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future...” should not go unattended. So, cheer up, the messiah-savior is here to bray. Welcome to Dhongistan!

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London, UK

f.vajifdar@btinternet.com