Editorial Viewpoint
A state of mind
The subject of class has cropped up more than once in the last Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship election.
BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta’s brother Noshir, a former corporator in the Bombay Municipal Corporation spoke about his brother and family being designated as “Foras Road dadas (bullies)” while Berjis Desai, the founder of the Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) and a Sunday columnist for The Bombay Samachar has written in the past about NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Parsis vs dhansak Parsis (see “‘Us’ and ‘them,’” Parsiana, December 21, 2008). On April 19, 2009 in his column he referred to a new category, “Parsis by accident...
“They are street fighters itching for a scuffle. They desperately crave for social legitimacy. They sense the discomfort of their other more polished and urbane community men. Naked and raw power alone comforts them.”
In contrast Desai wrote of former BPP trustee and unsuccessful candidate Maneck Engineer who was born and raised in Cusrow Baug as having “risen from a poor household but… (with) middle class values. He is good and honest and simple.”
Dinshaw Mehta often bragged after the October 2008 elections that “the elite” were defeated by the common Parsis/Iranis. In endorsing the candidature of Mehta in the October 2008 elections noted solicitor Rusi Sethna had stated at an election meeting at the Cricket Club of India on September 23, 2008 (see “A rough diamond,” Parsiana, October 7, 2008) “Dinshaw is a cut above (past trustees). He is not Sir Dinshaw Mehta (this is why people dislike him) but he works at the grass roots level. Dinshaw is a diamond, a rough one, so what?”
At the same meeting Tata Sons director Farrokh Kavarana said his late mother Silloo, a BPP trustee, when referring to Mehta had said, “Aee heera maa chhaant nathi (there is no flaw in this diamond).”
So people have varying perceptions of who is a person of quality and who is not. Did the voters therefore vote along class lines? Or did they vote rationally and objectively for the person most qualified to be a trustee? The answer is they probably voted for whom they were most comfortable with.
If anything Engineer probably had a tougher childhood walking to school from Colaba to Dhobi Talao to save a few paise on a tram ticket. But Engineer is an introvert, a quiet person, not an outgoing, hail-fellow-well-met, back slapping type.
His approach is more managerial, even bureaucratic. Phiroze Amroliwalla, an unsuccessful candidate in the October 2008 elections who vigorously campaigned against Engineer in the April 2009 election, related at the various election rallies for Tirandaz that when a friend asked him for assistance to get his Godrej refrigerator repaired, Engineer allegedly told him to follow the laid down procedure. (Amroliwalla said he finally managed by sweet talking the telephone operator in the service department.)
But wasn’t Engineer more qualified than Tirandaz? He is a certified civil engineer and architect handling a budget of 1,000 crore rupees. Tirandaz as some of her detractors point out is “a physiotherapist” and an animal lover and activist, not trustee material.
One can recall people denigrating the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for being an Indian Airlines pilot and the late US president Ronald Reagan, a B grade Hollywood actor.
While Gandhi’s tenure in office was rather undistinguished, Reagan became one of the great leaders of his time, freeing the US economy from the shackles of government control, private cartels and monopolies (though today some argue this liberalization contributed to the current global financial meltdown).
Whether it is a Mayawati or a Lalu Prasad Yadav or a Manmohan Singh it is hard to decipher or predict what sways voters. Singh rose from poverty, studying by a kerosene lamp as his village had no electricity. Yet it is Mayawati or Lalu who harp as being of and from the masses.
Singh earned a doctorate from Oxford University and became prime minister not because he was a vote getter but because Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was unacceptable to the opposition and some of the party’s electoral allies as she was born an Italian and became an Indian citizen late in life.
In a sense both Gandhi and Singh faced discrimination, one because of her birth (racism) and the other because he was viewed as distant and learned (part of the “elite” as Mehta would say). Still between them they manage rather well the affairs of a tumultuous democracy run by a mishmash coalition of around 20 parties.
“Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on,” stated the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.” In Parsi/Irani politics morality is often a casualty.
We may not with certainty state that voting is done on class, caste or race basis in Parsi/Irani politics. Class is also a state of mind. Mehta is financially well off and educated. He lives in a posh neighborhood. In what way is he not part of the elite? In his outlook and tactics he remains a street fighter, someone ready to roll up his sleeves at the slightest provocation. His co-trustees who supported Tirandaz are also affluent and educated. Yet they all endorsed the smear campaign against Engineer and indulged in dirty tricks. Why did they do it? Could they not have won utilizing more honorable means. And if not, was it worth the price?
Voters are perceptive and shrewd. No matter who wins or how, if the new trustees do not fulfill their election promises the community will seek a change. Mediocrity, non-performance, infighting will dull the shine of victory sooner than one knows. The new trustees, whatever their breeding, have six-and-a-half years remaining in office. After that will be the day of reckoning.
BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta’s brother Noshir, a former corporator in the Bombay Municipal Corporation spoke about his brother and family being designated as “Foras Road dadas (bullies)” while Berjis Desai, the founder of the Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) and a Sunday columnist for The Bombay Samachar has written in the past about NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Parsis vs dhansak Parsis (see “‘Us’ and ‘them,’” Parsiana, December 21, 2008). On April 19, 2009 in his column he referred to a new category, “Parsis by accident...
“They are street fighters itching for a scuffle. They desperately crave for social legitimacy. They sense the discomfort of their other more polished and urbane community men. Naked and raw power alone comforts them.”
In contrast Desai wrote of former BPP trustee and unsuccessful candidate Maneck Engineer who was born and raised in Cusrow Baug as having “risen from a poor household but… (with) middle class values. He is good and honest and simple.”
Dinshaw Mehta often bragged after the October 2008 elections that “the elite” were defeated by the common Parsis/Iranis. In endorsing the candidature of Mehta in the October 2008 elections noted solicitor Rusi Sethna had stated at an election meeting at the Cricket Club of India on September 23, 2008 (see “A rough diamond,” Parsiana, October 7, 2008) “Dinshaw is a cut above (past trustees). He is not Sir Dinshaw Mehta (this is why people dislike him) but he works at the grass roots level. Dinshaw is a diamond, a rough one, so what?”
At the same meeting Tata Sons director Farrokh Kavarana said his late mother Silloo, a BPP trustee, when referring to Mehta had said, “Aee heera maa chhaant nathi (there is no flaw in this diamond).”
So people have varying perceptions of who is a person of quality and who is not. Did the voters therefore vote along class lines? Or did they vote rationally and objectively for the person most qualified to be a trustee? The answer is they probably voted for whom they were most comfortable with.
If anything Engineer probably had a tougher childhood walking to school from Colaba to Dhobi Talao to save a few paise on a tram ticket. But Engineer is an introvert, a quiet person, not an outgoing, hail-fellow-well-met, back slapping type.
His approach is more managerial, even bureaucratic. Phiroze Amroliwalla, an unsuccessful candidate in the October 2008 elections who vigorously campaigned against Engineer in the April 2009 election, related at the various election rallies for Tirandaz that when a friend asked him for assistance to get his Godrej refrigerator repaired, Engineer allegedly told him to follow the laid down procedure. (Amroliwalla said he finally managed by sweet talking the telephone operator in the service department.)
But wasn’t Engineer more qualified than Tirandaz? He is a certified civil engineer and architect handling a budget of 1,000 crore rupees. Tirandaz as some of her detractors point out is “a physiotherapist” and an animal lover and activist, not trustee material.
One can recall people denigrating the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for being an Indian Airlines pilot and the late US president Ronald Reagan, a B grade Hollywood actor.
While Gandhi’s tenure in office was rather undistinguished, Reagan became one of the great leaders of his time, freeing the US economy from the shackles of government control, private cartels and monopolies (though today some argue this liberalization contributed to the current global financial meltdown).
Whether it is a Mayawati or a Lalu Prasad Yadav or a Manmohan Singh it is hard to decipher or predict what sways voters. Singh rose from poverty, studying by a kerosene lamp as his village had no electricity. Yet it is Mayawati or Lalu who harp as being of and from the masses.
Singh earned a doctorate from Oxford University and became prime minister not because he was a vote getter but because Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was unacceptable to the opposition and some of the party’s electoral allies as she was born an Italian and became an Indian citizen late in life.
In a sense both Gandhi and Singh faced discrimination, one because of her birth (racism) and the other because he was viewed as distant and learned (part of the “elite” as Mehta would say). Still between them they manage rather well the affairs of a tumultuous democracy run by a mishmash coalition of around 20 parties.
“Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on,” stated the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.” In Parsi/Irani politics morality is often a casualty.
We may not with certainty state that voting is done on class, caste or race basis in Parsi/Irani politics. Class is also a state of mind. Mehta is financially well off and educated. He lives in a posh neighborhood. In what way is he not part of the elite? In his outlook and tactics he remains a street fighter, someone ready to roll up his sleeves at the slightest provocation. His co-trustees who supported Tirandaz are also affluent and educated. Yet they all endorsed the smear campaign against Engineer and indulged in dirty tricks. Why did they do it? Could they not have won utilizing more honorable means. And if not, was it worth the price?
Voters are perceptive and shrewd. No matter who wins or how, if the new trustees do not fulfill their election promises the community will seek a change. Mediocrity, non-performance, infighting will dull the shine of victory sooner than one knows. The new trustees, whatever their breeding, have six-and-a-half years remaining in office. After that will be the day of reckoning.
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