“Dealing with dissent”

In "Dealing with dissent” (Parsiana, September 7, 2009) Eruch B. Desai alludes to "a chasm between the middle class of the community and the rich and the affluent.” To provide a corrective he would have "persons who matter” on the board of trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP). To illustrate the type of persons he has in mind, he gives the names of five well-known Parsis who "could have enhanced its (BPP’s) prestige in the eyes of all.” Also, Desai rightly castigates the system of adult franchise by calling it "a monumental blunder,” though he forgets to mention his professional brother who was responsible for its introduction.

To determine the type of persons who, as trustees of the BPP, could prove to be beneficial to the community one should first of all be clear as to what the raison d’etre of the BPP is. Is it just to manage 5,000 flats, conduct commerce classes and construct residential buildings on vacant lands in its possession, as some lawyers, Indian Civil Service officers and journalists have been trying to assert? No, certainly not. Simply because a man is efficient in the area of one secular activity or another, a good administrator, a man of big business, he should not be made a trustee of the BPP.

True, there are those who look upon the BPP as a house of commerce in need of "guidance” from commercialists. But such men are either ignorant or they have an axe to grind. Nothing can be further from the BPP than mass commercialism. It is not a limited company in need of "directors.” Earlier, some persons succeeded in persuading a man of Pherozeshah Mehta’s stature to declare his candidature, assuring him that they would see to it that he was elected as a trustee. Fortunately for both, the community and the Lion of Bombay, the latter lost; trusteeship was one thing which was beyond his mind’s compass. Can any knowledgeable person equate the BPP with a municipal corporation? Even supposing Mehta had been elected, in what way could he have helped the community as a trustee?

Among other things, the BPP is responsible for the upkeep and preservation of Doongerwadi and the agiaries in its possession and its trustees are expected to act as guiding lights in religious and socio-religious matters. It would be futile to seek such traits in those who are solely interested in mercantile transactions, for such persons are most likely to exhibit assertiveness and arrogance which would be not only irrational but also morally and spiritually untenable. Such trustees would not hesitate to assert that the BPP has nothing to do with religion; our religion not only permits but advocates cremation; intermarriages should not only be permitted but glorified; and renegade priests should be sanctified. And a few "knowledgeable” columnists together with some society songbirds would be ever ready to support them.

In religious and socio-religious matters, the judgments of lawyers, medical doctors, civil servants, men of big business are to be discounted because they can provide no standard measurement for appraising the solutions to the problems facing the community, problems not only related to the visible institutional aspect of the BPP but also to the nucleus of our very existence. But we do not intend to generalize. Experiential reality tells us that there are some professionals, men of big business, etc who are fully aware of their limitations, and hence prefer not to dabble in religious and socio-religious matters. They deserve to be complimented.

Having portrayed the dark or perilous side of the issue, it only remains for us to delineate the type of trustee who would prove to be beneficial to our religion and community. Let it be said with all the emphasis at our command that only orthodox scholars can act as guideposts and benchmarks in a community crippled by evasion and duplicity of some self-important professionals or men of big business who managed to get elected as trustees of the BPP during the last seven or eight decades. Of course, once some orthodox scholars are elected on the board, we must be prepared for the introduction of severe discipline even if it leads to eventual division of the community.

Armed with foresight, only orthodox scholars can translate into life and action the fundamental tenets of Zoroastrianism and thus save the community from racial suicide. Any submission to or dependence upon the populists — by whom the heterodox are pleasantly sketched — would prove to be dreadful. In case of a god-fearing man who is not a religious scholar becoming a trustee, the least he can do is to show deferential submissiveness to all ecclesiastical fiats.

FARIBOURZ NARIMAN

faribourz_nariman@yahoo.com