Hijacked by bigots

The trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) appear to be a bunch of neo-Nazis who have hijacked the religion through populism to play to their conservative voter base. Instead of dedicating their time and energy to their sole responsibility of managing BPP trust properties, they proudly anoint themselves with the mantle of defenders of the faith to justify storming an initiation ceremony in Sanjan and menacing a navjote in Bombay.

They’re also cowards to boot: When stopped in their tracks at the Bandra police station during the navjote imbroglio, Dinshaw Mehta and company claimed that they were not about to "create any disturbance.” They were, no doubt, about to file a peaceful, non-violent, Gandhian objection, as they did in Sanjan!

The BPP trustees cannot legitimately claim to understand the religion, when they publicly flaunt their shoddy comprehension of their own responsibilities (the principle of separation of church and state is obviously of little interest to them) and the history of Zoroastrianism itself. Such petty small-minded bigots could care less that Zoroastrianism was and is practiced more liberally in Iran, its historical homeland, and in several Central Asian countries. As for the "racial purity” argument, not only has history proven the consequences of that kind of "us vs them” thinking (hint: Hitler), it is also very shaky. Studies have shown that while Parsi DNA does reveal a longtime link to Persia on the patrilineal side, the matrilineal DNA evidence is far less conclusive, revealing historical intermarriage with (heaven forbid!) local Gujarati women. Moreover, Parsi and Irani Zoroastrians in India are only part of the global Zoroastrian community, since Iranians, Azeris and Russians, among others — people of different ethnic origins — also profess the faith. So claims of racial purity are specious, in addition to being revisitionist history.

We could perhaps write off the BPP’s appalling behavior as a ploy to pander to the orthodox vote bank that depends on them for sustenance, a trend set by the Shiv Sena with their "Mumbai Manoos” diatribe. However, that would mean letting them off the hook too easily. Fascism begins with small acts of intolerance that, when left unchecked, build up over time to a crescendo. Such disgraceful acts of hatred, perpetrated in the name of a religion that has been hijacked by bigots, deserve to be publicly denounced.

Dinshaw Mehta and your henchmen: You certainly cannot claim to speak for all of us, and even less so for the Zoroastrian religion.

NIKKI KARANI

Paris, France

nikki.karani@gmail.com