Abuse of charity

Some years back, at my behest, trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) took a decision that no doles should be paid to able-bodied male Parsis unemployed for more than five years.

One Ambawadi resident who gets Rs 15,000 per month from other trusts owns a motorcycle and a mobile phone. He has a spastic daughter who is looked after by his wife, but that’s no excuse for his not working. Under the rules of the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, 80 percent of the annual income of a trust has to be disbursed in that year. This has encouraged the lazy to fatten on doles.

Many tenants and lessees of trust-owned properties want more and more for less and less, mainly because of the vote-catching philosophy of those trusts where trustees are elected. This aberration is not present in trusts whose trustees are not elected.

All Parsi trusts believe that the community’s salvation lies in the education and economic well-being of the next generation and so they support students liberally, especially for studies abroad. Unfortunately, many of these recipients have to be reminded to repay the loan component. However, some are gracious enough to even return the gift component of the scholarships.

About six years back the BPP floated an appeal to tenants, most of whose rents were antiquated, to voluntarily increase the rents. Out of over 2,800 tenants only three came forward: Phiroze Amroliwalla sent in Rs 15,000, while a retired lady school teacher and a widow each agreed to an increase, suggested by themselves. Three years back a similar appeal was sent to tenants of the Sir Shapurji Bharucha Baug. Not a single one responded. This is a baug with heavy fiscal deficits where, with the exception of two buildings, the entire colony has remained unrepaired for 48 years.

The community seems to have lost sight of its obligations to the next generation, to whom we should hand down our physical heritage in a sound, not a dilapidated, condition. We are self-centered, myopic and unconcerned about the situations staring us in the face. The Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999, emboldens this brazen-faced attitude of self-indulgence. Unfortunately, we have lost the vision of our sethias and stalwarts, and have become a community of self-seekers.

B. T. DASTUR