“Suspect scholarship”

This has reference to "Suspect scholarship” by Jamsheed Kanga (Parsiana, October 21, 2008). It is not the undersigned’s intention to vindicate Khojeste Mistree. Maybe no vindication is required in view of what is stated below. To achieve his aim, Kanga adopts two modes: nearly 75 percent of his article is set apart for selective quotes from a paper which my revered teacher, the late Dastur (Dr) Hormuzdiar Mirza read 37 years ago and a rhetorical question of 11 words with which the airy-fairy article is brought to an end.

It is surprising that Kanga should have thought of quoting Mirza, whose conversion caucus he had the audacity to judge. Incidentally, Mirza’s work was a stunning rejoinder to an article by a chemical engineer published in Parsiana (when Dr Pestonji Warden was its editor). Just a few months ago, Kanga performed a superhuman feat, like that of comparing a glowworm with the sun, when he compared the chemical engineer with Mirza, giving short shrift to the latter while extolling the former. Today Kanga has found it opportune to quote the very savant whom he had ventured to castigate in the recent past.

In this connection, perhaps some sympathizers of Kanga may speak about his "democratic right” and, for all we know, some admirers of Dini Awaz and Deenparast (both defunct) and two other marvaani aashaae jivtaa (moribund) periodicals would be glad to join him, but that is beside the point. In the context of the internal affairs of our community, the disturbing determinant is "democratic right.” Now and then we read/hear about safeguarding our heritage but, as if by a decree nisi, at the instance of some bigheads, we divorced one heritage after another!

For millennia we were wedded to beautiful, resplendent aristocracy. We did not hesitate to divorce aristocracy because some of our bigheads had fallen in love with a vulgar shrew called democracy with which we decided to go in for second marriage. It may be noted that when aristocracy is the rule of the day, every human activity is held to be sacred; otherwise stated, work is a ritual. A democracy divides sacred from secular, and hence religion becomes your "private affair,” it is what you do or don’t do on certain days!

Again, one of the several ills of democracy is the "right” of anybody and everybody to pronounce on any person or subject. A man may be a total stranger to a particular discipline, but still, he has a "right” to speak/write about it as if he is an authority on the same! Some recent examples: a cricket correspondent from Gujarat suddenly came out with an article (in Jamé) on an oriental conference and Sheriarji Bharucha; a qawwali-singer "produced” photographs and started writing about dakhmenashini; a solicitor tried to teach the community the "difference” between Parsis and Zoroastrians; another solicitor and an ex-trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) "defended” dakhme­nashini in order to appear as an orthodox before the community!

The import of Kanga’s rhetorical question is that a man like Khojeste Mistree is not fit to be entrusted with trusteeship of the BPP. Curiously enough, Kanga desists from edifying readers as to what sort of persons are cut out for trusteeship of the BPP: lawyers (preferably partners of a particular firm), medical doctors, men of big business, civil servants, economists, men who are self-appointed masters of rolls, men adept at backstairs plotting while assuming pious attitudes to be in the glare of publicity, men who can play the devil quoting the scriptures, directors of 10 or 20 companies, men on friendly terms with the high and mighty in an oriental institute (who would love to project them as future saviors of our community), men with business acumen who would divert madressa funds to a commerce class, men who can deliver a speech sprinkled with allusions to Cyrus, Darius, the Sassanians, and what have you?

True, some such persons may be kind, generous, humorous, but not one of them is a religious scholar! Amusingly enough, in the last election, some candidates or their pawns tried to put it across to the voters that the BPP had nothing to do with religion!

Considering all that has been said, explicitly or implicitly, it just remains to be observed that Kanga has failed signally to achieve his aim; his failure can be compared with that of those who contrived to rout World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis with the help of "adult franchise” coupled with a hostile Press. It may be added that, while failing on one count, Kanga may have succeeded on another — in ingratiating himself with the votaries of futurism, both in India and abroad.

FARIBOURZ NARIMAN

faribourz_nariman@yahoo.com