“Saints or sinners”

"Saints or sinners” (Editorial Viewpoint, Parsiana, February 21, 2009) as usual was to the point, giving the factual and true account of issues facing the community.

Maneck Engineer and Armaity Tirandaz have thrown their hats in the ring for the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) elections, along with two others. Should either of these two win the election then we are back to square one as the board once again will be loaded with the orthodox and traditionalists. The need of the hour is reform. Zarathushtra reformed the world. The orthodox and the traditionalists are hell bent on destroying the community with their absurd beliefs. The numbers are dwindling and the religion is not propagated, proliferated and preached to mankind as was done by Zarathushtra and his followers. And they have the gall to shout from rooftops "Dharam sankat maa chhè (the religion is endangered).”

Doongerwadi is a sham, and in shambles. The corpses are decaying and solar concentrators can never do the job of vultures. Bits and pieces of the decaying bodies are taken out of the dakhmas and buried. No further proof or discussion is needed as Dhun Baria has produced photos, and Ervad Framroze Mirza, who is not contesting this time, has made an unequivocal statement at the last election which no one has challenged or refuted with any evidence.

As for the BPP trustees, they think they are God’s gift to the bawas at whose whims and fancies the community survives. All this bickering is only for massaging their egos and to show who is the boss. Merit ratings and lists are a small part of the whole scheme and are used as per convenience.

The sad part of this sordid drama is that the innocent Joint Charity Commissioner (JtCC) adopted a humane approach, tried to mediate and reaped a reward of brickbats with wanton, uncalled for, unjustified accusations that he was threatening the trustees. What axe would he have to grind? It is the trustees who have an axe to grind. The JtCC’s big mistake was that he did not remove all of them under Sec 41D, and appoint an administrator. Instead, he passed a mild and watered down order to comply with what the previous trustees, including the present chairman Dinshaw Mehta, had agreed to at the hearings.

For AZA (Alert Zoroastrians Association) it’s going to be a long drawn battle. Even if they win in the High Court, which they should as a trust cannot enter into business activity in violation of the trust deed, they still have a long haul to the Supreme Court. Of course they will be called renegades, blacklegs, rabble-rousers, troublemakers, mischief mongers and what have you by the trustees and their acolytes. However, the bawas may refer to them as Spartacus, for taking up their cause, and will patiently await the judgment day.

Your desire for the two warring factions to resolve the disagreement amicably is far fetched, for the JtCC has already tried to do this and has burnt his fingers. No one in his right mind will want to jump into the well with open eyes.

The Times of India dated March 18, 2009 subsequently carried a report with the headline "Retired SC judge may mediate in Parsi flat allotment,” which comes as a reprieve for the harried trustees, as the High Court directed the Charity Commissioner not to take any steps until the hearing is completed.

The outcome of this is quite predictable. It will be a compromise formula worked out whereby some of the 104 original allottees will be denied allotment while quite a few of them will get it. But is that a solution to the main issue?

It appears that the courts have missed the woods for the trees. The main issues are: Can the trust fund allot flats by accepting pugree in lakhs of rupees? Can the trustees sell flats and form co-operative societies on lands belonging to the trust fund or lands acquired from the trust or corpus funds? Does the BPP trust deed permit this?

These basic issues will remain hanging fire and will have to be sorted out after another battle in the future.

And what if these warring factions do not agree to a name of an arbitrator?

BEHRAM AGA

behram_r_aga@yahoo.co.in