The shores of Sanjan

For reasons sacred and sentimental the shores of Sanjan are of special significance to the community. Today, more than 1,000 years later, the descendants of these migrants are "paying back that debt by helping the local residents fight environmental pollution on the coastline,” reported The Times of India (TOI) on August 31, 2009.

Tadgam, near Sanjan, is the focus of their concern. Several Parsis from Bombay are investing their time and money helping villagers there to deal with the pollution of the land and beaches caused by a giant pipeline which dumps untreated industrial waste into the sea. As a result of effluents carried by the 14 km pipeline from the industrial estate to the sea, fishermen in the area complain that their catch is reducing and "many of them have been forced to migrate to other townships like Veraval and Cambay to obtain jobs and keep their home fires burning,” Xerxes Buhariwalla informed TOI. Along with Dinaz Banaji, Buhariwalla is engaged in spreading the word to save the coastline by contacting influential Parsis in Bombay.

Sohrab Canteenwalla, who has a farmhouse at Tadgam, was shocked at the slow degradation of the area over the past decade, he told TOI. The Bombay-based pilot recalled that his "father owned a house at Tadgam and I used to go there on weekends. We saw the environmental damage and decided to help the local villagers… to restore the area to its earlier state.” He said that two Parsi lawyers in Ahmedabad have volunteered to fight their cases.

Sanjan Stambh: revered by Parsis

"Sanjan and the area around it is revered by Parsis. Watching it being degraded by industrial effluents, which are seeping into the soil and destroying fish in the sea made us sit up and take notice,” Parizad Ghosh (née Davar) informed TOI. She too owns a house in the area.

Upset at the situation, Dr Mehroo Bengalee, member of the National Commission for Minorities, former vice chancellor of Bombay University and former trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet has written to Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, asking for his intervention in the matter. The TOI reports that she wants him to tell owners of industries to destroy the chemical waste rather than allowing it to pollute the area.