Heartless fundamentalism

Recently, there has been a wave of reports on incidents that have taken place in the Parsi community in Bombay, Valsad and Sanjan. Two priests serving the community in the true spirit of Zoroastrianism were declared as renegades by the High Priests and the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees debarred them from performing ceremonies at places under the BPP’s control. Mikhail Chistyakov (who was being ordained as a priest) and Dr Meher Master-Moos were physically attacked by a group of 40 odd Parsis who had said goodbye to the basic Zoroastrian principles of humata, hukhta and huvarshta and yet called themselves Parsi Zoroastrians. Ervad Jal Balsara walked out of the geh sarna midway through the ceremony.

Goolrookh Gupta had to seek legal redress to enter the agiary at Valsad and to be able in the future to attend the funeral prayers of her dear parents. The dasturs’ blatant statement that Gupta should "accept the consequences” of her decision to marry outside the community is quite offensive. Why should she (or any other Parsi lady in a similar position) accept this when it is well known that the religion of Zarathushtra does not practice gender discrimination?

There was a threat to disrupt the navjote ceremony of the children of Roshni Maloo and Savio D’Souza and police protection had to be sought. The ceremony was variously described as unreligious, invalid and that it was conversion by the back door. Why should not the navjotes of such children be performed and how can anyone say this is conversion by the back door when not that long ago the dasturs of India converted two Christian gentlemen to Zoroastrianism, thereby clearly declaring that the religion of Zarathushtra not only permits conversion but enjoins it.

And a year ago there was the sad case of a Parsi girl of eight years who was allowed to starve to death because the mother, a non-Parsi, whose husband had abandoned the family, was asked to produce a marriage certificate before being given assistance. How heartless can religious fundamentalism get!

All the above incidents have raised the hackles in the Parsi community. Shrill voices have shouted in letters, articles and e-mails the age-old nauseating phrase "time-honored and tested tenets of our religion.” It is high time that those who dictate to the Parsi ladies married outside the fold learn that in the "time tested” formula the time has gone long back and the test is now here. Eventually, the Parsi ladies married outside the fold and their progeny will succeed as nothing and nobody can hold back the march of time, particularly when barriers placed in their way have no basis in religion.

We all know that the religion of Zarathushtra is universal, that it does not countenance gender discrimination and that there is nothing in our noble religion that debars Parsi women married to non-Parsis from going to the fire temple or attending/participating in any religious ceremony.

In all the above listed cases, the priestly class and the trustees have repeatedly missed the opportunity of uniting the community by their mindless opposition to change for the good of the community. These bodies place emphasis on keeping intact the so-called Parsi ethnicity, which in effect means practising apartheid of the worst kind against its own members just because they have married outside the community. Were they to shift the emphasis from ethnicity to the preservation of religion the problems would be sorted out without acrimony and heartburn. If wisdom prevails, the community will reform and prosper. If wisdom does not prevail, then the community will stagnate and perish and it will not be long before that sad fate overtakes the community.

SHAHPUR CAPTAIN

London, UK

shahpur.captain@btinternet.com