New BPP team

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) elections are over. Let’s not make any hurried judgments regarding the future. Change is both welcome and necessary. Fresh new faces and enthusiasm are bound to lift up the image of the BPP. We hope that every idea will be thrashed out and then voted on before it is implemented. However, one can’t overlook the irony that Dinshaw Mehta, the very man who was at the center of all the controversy, is today chairman of the BPP!

One is a little worried that the trustees should not go overboard with orthodoxy and drag the community down with dogmatism or diktats. One would wish to see a more transparent, cordial and humane BPP. In all fairness, let us extend to the new team unstinted support and good wishes. Let them never forget that they are here to serve and not to be served, in carrying out the trust reposed in them.

RODA D. HAKIM

Baroda

vadhakim@yahoo.com

The verdict is loud and clear. The Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) had to bite the dust and may not be heard of in the future. Parsis have given a clear mandate that they don’t want reforms or progress and are happy with the existing arrangements and practices, including leave and license, and the pugree system.

Eruch Desai’s apprehensions in "Consequences of change” (Parsiana, August 21, 2008) that the new team would not be enlightened in religious matters and would be completely ignorant of the complex working of the trust affairs of such a vast magnitude are unwarranted as there are not one but two religious scholars, and two battle scarred warhorses in the new team.

Dinshaw Mehta, despite all the character assassination, mudslinging, humiliation, hounding, and baying for his blood, polled the second largest number of votes. The voters have given him a thumbs up. Not only will he have his third term, he is now chairman of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP). The old adage "Mudai jo lakh bura chaahé tau kya hota hai? Wohi hota hai jo manzooré khuda hota hai (never mind the illwill harbored, only that which God wills, takes place)” has once again been proved right.

The AFP was first wrapped in secrecy, and later a cobbled up team of the community’s elite was paraded before the bawas. The AFP had no captive vote bank like the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) or the two Mistrys. Their image was one of aristocracy and snobbery with no grassroots contacts. They were not in sync with the common bawas.

That apart, the AFP proved a disappointment for progressive and reform seeking Parsis. They had more or less the same agenda as the orthodox, so there was nothing tangible to differentiate the AFP from the other candidates. Ervad Framroze Mirza was the only brave heart who openly promised reforms regarding dakhmenashini.

In the grand Parsi media circus Jam-e-Jamshed Weekly came a cropper. It acted like the public relations agency of AFP, censoring all contrary and opposing viewpoint (including mine), going hammer and tongs for Mehta, calling him a Pinocchio, drawing cartoons and caricatures of him. All the Jamé’s predictions were belied.

It’s a fractured verdict, though WAPIZ has an edge with two of their candidates being victorious. With Dinshaw Mehta and Rustom Tirandaz in their camp they will have the numbers and will call the shots. So, as ABBA sang, "The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall.”

BEHRAM AGA

behram_r_aga@yahoo.co.in

I wonder who bank rolled the extravaganza of the gahanbar which fed over 5,000 at Dadar as per my information? I did not witness the tamasha. I have no problem if the trustees have spent from their pocket and not used the Bombay Parsi Punchayet’s money.

MAHRUKH JOSHI

mahrukhjoshi@yahoo.co.in

The editors reply

The trustees paid from their own pockets.