Editorial Viewpoint
Give and take
“I would like to say to the rich and well-to-do that they, in fact, should stop taking money from the BPP (Bombay Parsi Punchayet)…my plea to the rich is to come forward and help the community, to give to the community and not take.” So stated BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta in the December 2010 BPP Review. He accused the well-to-do of taking “money in different ways from the BPP trust, (by) cashing in on their rented BPP accommodation,” taking paghri (a lump sum consideration proffered by the buyer of a tenanted flat and accepted by the seller with a percentage of 33 to 50+ for the landlord) “or even scholarship money from the BPP, while at the same time criticizing it or filing cases against the BPP.”
Hopefully Mehta’s entreaty to the community is just populist rhetoric. A trusteeship election is possibly looming and what better way of winning over votes than by denigrating the affluent? They are a soft target and unlikely to respond except by further withholding their largesse.
If it is not the rich who are filling the BPP’s coffers then who is doing so? It is certainly not the poor, nor the trustees themselves. If Mehta had consulted co-trustee Noshir Dadrawala who is an authority on trust management and heads the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy, he would have gained an insight into the minds of donors.
In her column titled “How much you give depends on who’s asking” in the Mint (December 16, 2010) economic daily, Shobha Narayan noted that 17 billionaires including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, CNN’s Ted Turner joined investor Warren Buffet and Microsoft’s Bill Gates “in pledging to give away half their personal fortune in their lifetime.” So she wrote to Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton stating, “I am an avid follower of your research on spending and philanthropy, and have a question for you: Why doesn’t Mukesh Ambani give? Mr Ambani is the richest man in Asia and the fourth richest man in the world. Yet, he hasn’t made any kind of substantial life-changing philanthropic contribution. I wonder if you have some clues as to why he does not give.”
Norton replied, “My research doesn’t address your question — why some people give and why some people don’t — so I will refrain from commenting on why Mr Ambani does or does not give. Our research focuses on how, after giving, people feel happier — but not on what prompts them to give in the first place.”
One reason people give is to support an organization they believe is performing a beneficial function. If the BPP is to receive donations the trust needs to revamp its image. Parsis are skeptical of the BPP’s objectives. The trustees’ energies appear to be diverted more to contentious issues and ofttimes senseless litigation rather than philanthropy. The fatwa against the two “renegade” priests is a case in point. A matter that could have been resolved with a little give and take “over a cup of tea” resulted in legal bills of reportedly upwards of Rs 50,00,000 (US $ 111,111). The B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital in contrast has a positive image and last year received close to 12 crore rupees (US $ 2,666,666) as donations to their corpus.
How does the BPP increase its wealth if not through donations from the wealthy? In two ways primarily: one by leasing/developing properties and selling ownership flats to the well-heeled; second by charging paghri each time a tenanted flat changes hands. Who can afford to buy a six-and-a-half crore rupee (US $ 1,444,444) flat in Cusrow Baug? Certainly not someone who is indigent or middle class. Not even young couples in the high income bracket. Banks don’t give loans towards leave and licence flats. The new occupant is a person who either has a lot of money or has disposed of some other valuable property and is now channeling the proceeds to lease an expensive BPP flat.
Some argue it is the poor who should have been allotted the Cusrow Baug flat, not the wealthy. But in reality almost no one gives up a flat without some monetary consideration in return. (Rustom Hormuzdiyar, the former election president for the BPP trusteeship contests was an exception. He gave up a flat in Cusrow Baug without asking for, or receiving any compensation. The new trustees, after assuming office in October 2008, scotched his appointment for the election thereafter.) So rather than have flats locked for years and have millions of rupees spent on litigation, the BPP has taken a pragmatic approach. But it ill behooves them to point fingers at others when they themselves are generating enormous income by subverting the very purpose for which the settlors founded these charitable trusts. Even in S. B. Bharucha Baug the trust’s settlor specified the land be used for the poor. Instead ownership flats were built and sold by the BPP. The BPP makes its money not from people’s generosity but more by charging for services rendered.
The initial thinking behind the proposal to exploit community property was likened to a Robin Hood approach: take from the rich and give to the poor (in reality Hood enriched himself and his Merry Band as much as others, so maybe the comparison is apt). The money accrued from transfer of tenancy and the lease/sale of ownership flats in buildings such as Aderbad, Spenta, Shanazeen never went to building housing for the disadvantaged. It was channeled to other expenses/causes. Only after the Alert Zoroastrians Association took up the matter did the BPP give an undertaking to the Bombay High Court that the proceeds from the sale of flats in Bharucha Baug would go towards building low income housing.
Instead of griping about the rich not giving to the BPP, Mehta’s purpose would be better served if he were to ask why the affluent are not donating money to the BPP. He and his co-trustees would then need to do a lot of soul searching to learn the answers.
Hopefully Mehta’s entreaty to the community is just populist rhetoric. A trusteeship election is possibly looming and what better way of winning over votes than by denigrating the affluent? They are a soft target and unlikely to respond except by further withholding their largesse.
If it is not the rich who are filling the BPP’s coffers then who is doing so? It is certainly not the poor, nor the trustees themselves. If Mehta had consulted co-trustee Noshir Dadrawala who is an authority on trust management and heads the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy, he would have gained an insight into the minds of donors.
In her column titled “How much you give depends on who’s asking” in the Mint (December 16, 2010) economic daily, Shobha Narayan noted that 17 billionaires including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, CNN’s Ted Turner joined investor Warren Buffet and Microsoft’s Bill Gates “in pledging to give away half their personal fortune in their lifetime.” So she wrote to Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton stating, “I am an avid follower of your research on spending and philanthropy, and have a question for you: Why doesn’t Mukesh Ambani give? Mr Ambani is the richest man in Asia and the fourth richest man in the world. Yet, he hasn’t made any kind of substantial life-changing philanthropic contribution. I wonder if you have some clues as to why he does not give.”
Norton replied, “My research doesn’t address your question — why some people give and why some people don’t — so I will refrain from commenting on why Mr Ambani does or does not give. Our research focuses on how, after giving, people feel happier — but not on what prompts them to give in the first place.”
One reason people give is to support an organization they believe is performing a beneficial function. If the BPP is to receive donations the trust needs to revamp its image. Parsis are skeptical of the BPP’s objectives. The trustees’ energies appear to be diverted more to contentious issues and ofttimes senseless litigation rather than philanthropy. The fatwa against the two “renegade” priests is a case in point. A matter that could have been resolved with a little give and take “over a cup of tea” resulted in legal bills of reportedly upwards of Rs 50,00,000 (US $ 111,111). The B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital in contrast has a positive image and last year received close to 12 crore rupees (US $ 2,666,666) as donations to their corpus.
How does the BPP increase its wealth if not through donations from the wealthy? In two ways primarily: one by leasing/developing properties and selling ownership flats to the well-heeled; second by charging paghri each time a tenanted flat changes hands. Who can afford to buy a six-and-a-half crore rupee (US $ 1,444,444) flat in Cusrow Baug? Certainly not someone who is indigent or middle class. Not even young couples in the high income bracket. Banks don’t give loans towards leave and licence flats. The new occupant is a person who either has a lot of money or has disposed of some other valuable property and is now channeling the proceeds to lease an expensive BPP flat.
Some argue it is the poor who should have been allotted the Cusrow Baug flat, not the wealthy. But in reality almost no one gives up a flat without some monetary consideration in return. (Rustom Hormuzdiyar, the former election president for the BPP trusteeship contests was an exception. He gave up a flat in Cusrow Baug without asking for, or receiving any compensation. The new trustees, after assuming office in October 2008, scotched his appointment for the election thereafter.) So rather than have flats locked for years and have millions of rupees spent on litigation, the BPP has taken a pragmatic approach. But it ill behooves them to point fingers at others when they themselves are generating enormous income by subverting the very purpose for which the settlors founded these charitable trusts. Even in S. B. Bharucha Baug the trust’s settlor specified the land be used for the poor. Instead ownership flats were built and sold by the BPP. The BPP makes its money not from people’s generosity but more by charging for services rendered.
The initial thinking behind the proposal to exploit community property was likened to a Robin Hood approach: take from the rich and give to the poor (in reality Hood enriched himself and his Merry Band as much as others, so maybe the comparison is apt). The money accrued from transfer of tenancy and the lease/sale of ownership flats in buildings such as Aderbad, Spenta, Shanazeen never went to building housing for the disadvantaged. It was channeled to other expenses/causes. Only after the Alert Zoroastrians Association took up the matter did the BPP give an undertaking to the Bombay High Court that the proceeds from the sale of flats in Bharucha Baug would go towards building low income housing.
Instead of griping about the rich not giving to the BPP, Mehta’s purpose would be better served if he were to ask why the affluent are not donating money to the BPP. He and his co-trustees would then need to do a lot of soul searching to learn the answers.
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