Editorial Viewpoint
The dividing line
When the five high priests moved a special leave petition before the Supreme Court of India, the divisional bench excluded them from the mediation proceedings. Noted jurist Fali Nariman appearing on behalf of Jamsheed Kanga and Homi Khusrokhan who took up cudgels for the two so-called “renegade” priests, told the two justices that the issue was a legal one, not religious.
The argument Nariman put forth as did the battery of lawyers led by Iqbal Chagla before the Bombay High Court (BHC) was whether the Doongerwadi trust deed empowered the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees from barring Parsi Zoroastrian beneficiaries the right to select Parsi Zoroastrian priests of their choice to perform Parsi Zoroastrian funeral ceremonies for Parsi Zoroastrian corpses being consigned to the Towers of Silence. A divisional bench of the BHC said the trustees were not so empowered. The Supreme Court said mediate and if that fails we’ll decide whether the priests can join the legal fray and whether the ban stays or goes.
The BPP, World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) and the high priests believe the issue is a religious one. The BPP counsels kept hammering away at this point throughout the hearings before the BHC. That is why the priests also moved the SC though earlier they had wisely stayed away from the BHC deliberations.
When the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) president and BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta told the assembled delegates at the Valsad March FPZAI meet that with the BHC striking down the ban on two so-called “renegade” priests, the trustees’ hands would be tied in maintaining discipline, he was mistaken. The two priests had followed all the religious rites when praying at Doongerwadi. What the BPP and the high priests objected to was their praying elsewhere for those opting for cremation. This was clearly not in the purview of the high priests’ or the BPP’s jurisdiction.
The clergy and the laity need to rethink their individual jurisdictions. Too often they meddle in each other’s doings. Often the BPP and WAPIZ see themselves as enforcers of the priests’ fatwas (assuming they agree with the farmans). Too often the clergy’s injunctions are at the behest of the BPP and WAPIZ. The dasturs often confess they are pressured, coaxed, cajoled and even bullied into carrying out the wishes of the so-called traditionalists. Some sections of the lay leadership see themselves as the executive arm of the clergy rather than as a counter balance.
Hence in a way the formation of the Council of High Priests is a welcome move because the dasturs will now hopefully consult one another before unquestioningly appeasing their lay partners. The more they act independently, the better chance they have of maintaining their impartiality and winning community support. The priests need to focus on religious issues and on the welfare of the clergy, both of which they sadly neglect. Initiatives for the welfare of priests have come from well-meaning lay organizations. The Athravan Education Trust, the Parsi Resource Group, the World Zoroastrian Organisation priestly welfare schemes were formulated by behdins and maybe as a result, they did not succeed in making any lasting impact. The laity’s view is that the priesthood is a vocation, not a calling; hence if you throw in lots of money, athornans will put on priestly garb.
Priests still advise, nay exhort their sons not to take up the priesthood. They view it as a thankless, low paying and even degrading occupation where they are dependent on the largesse of their lay clientele. The fire temples, madressas are nearly all built by lay people. Unlike Christian or Muslim priests who wield considerable clout and initiate and run many institutions aside from churches, the Parsi priesthood has adopted the system more prevalent amongst the Hindus. Could it be that as both Hindus and Parsis follow a restrictive, hereditary caste based system for entry into the priesthood, new blood and fresh thinking have been stifled?
In some Hindu religious trusts, however, the government has taken over the management as in Tirupati when it was alleged the huge sums received from devotees were not being channeled as they should. Instead of a separation of church and state we have an unhealthy and unholy alliance of both. View the history of the church in Europe where monarchs and priests conspired together, at the cost of good governance and religious sanctity. And in modern day Iran one sees the devastation wreaked by a theocratic state.
And yet surprisingly, contemporary Zoroastrian religious reform has originated in a fundamentalist Islamic state. Women have been initiated into the priesthood with the blessings of both the Iranian clergy and laity. In India our high priests are too parochial to contemplate such a step; and if they dared to then vested laypersons would browbeat them into withdrawing such an edict.
The Iranian clergy is often ridiculed for not observing all the tarikats (traditions) and rituals which the Parsis sometimes slavishly follow in India. And yet Iran is where Zoroastrianism has its roots. They are the true torchbearers of the faith. Anyone can enter their fire temples. There is no racial or religious bar. If we cannot emulate their actions at least we should examine, discuss and debate the reforms instead of dismissing the measures offhand.
In Udvada the priestly anjuman felicitated Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for his efforts in declaring the revered south Gujarat coastal town a heritage site. One of the high priests went so far as to wish that Modi returned to celebrate 10 years from now the Iranshah’s 1,300 salgirah as prime minister. Allowing for the cloud that hangs over the chief minister for his acts of omission during the 2002 Godhra riots where members of another minority community were slaughtered while the police remained spectators, the remark was both insensitive and politically incorrect.
The clergy cannot take sides politically. Whether a Congressperson or a member of the opposition becomes prime minister, the church has to stay neutral. It is only when atrocities are being committed, where the weak are oppressed that the clergy has to speak out. They have to be on the side of morality, not a particular political party. The Vatican’s silence and some even say complicity with the Fascists and the Nazis during World War II remains a blot against their name. So also when they opposed scientific findings because they conflicted with some of their religious beliefs. Remember Galileo Galilei. He was tried, censured, made to recant by the Inquisition and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life for endorsing Copernicus’ theory that the sun was stationary and the earth circled around it. When Thomas Becket tried to enforce the church’s edicts vis-à-vis the state, Henry II inquired of his loyalists who would rid him of Becket. They obliged by beheading the archbishop.
The on-going tussle between the clergy and the community will not finally be decided by the courts of law alone but by reason, debate and a clearer understanding of each other’s role. In a democratic state functioning under the rule of law and governed by a modern day constitution, dialog and discussion is the way to resolve conflicts. There is no other path.
The argument Nariman put forth as did the battery of lawyers led by Iqbal Chagla before the Bombay High Court (BHC) was whether the Doongerwadi trust deed empowered the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees from barring Parsi Zoroastrian beneficiaries the right to select Parsi Zoroastrian priests of their choice to perform Parsi Zoroastrian funeral ceremonies for Parsi Zoroastrian corpses being consigned to the Towers of Silence. A divisional bench of the BHC said the trustees were not so empowered. The Supreme Court said mediate and if that fails we’ll decide whether the priests can join the legal fray and whether the ban stays or goes.
The BPP, World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) and the high priests believe the issue is a religious one. The BPP counsels kept hammering away at this point throughout the hearings before the BHC. That is why the priests also moved the SC though earlier they had wisely stayed away from the BHC deliberations.
When the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) president and BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta told the assembled delegates at the Valsad March FPZAI meet that with the BHC striking down the ban on two so-called “renegade” priests, the trustees’ hands would be tied in maintaining discipline, he was mistaken. The two priests had followed all the religious rites when praying at Doongerwadi. What the BPP and the high priests objected to was their praying elsewhere for those opting for cremation. This was clearly not in the purview of the high priests’ or the BPP’s jurisdiction.
The clergy and the laity need to rethink their individual jurisdictions. Too often they meddle in each other’s doings. Often the BPP and WAPIZ see themselves as enforcers of the priests’ fatwas (assuming they agree with the farmans). Too often the clergy’s injunctions are at the behest of the BPP and WAPIZ. The dasturs often confess they are pressured, coaxed, cajoled and even bullied into carrying out the wishes of the so-called traditionalists. Some sections of the lay leadership see themselves as the executive arm of the clergy rather than as a counter balance.
Hence in a way the formation of the Council of High Priests is a welcome move because the dasturs will now hopefully consult one another before unquestioningly appeasing their lay partners. The more they act independently, the better chance they have of maintaining their impartiality and winning community support. The priests need to focus on religious issues and on the welfare of the clergy, both of which they sadly neglect. Initiatives for the welfare of priests have come from well-meaning lay organizations. The Athravan Education Trust, the Parsi Resource Group, the World Zoroastrian Organisation priestly welfare schemes were formulated by behdins and maybe as a result, they did not succeed in making any lasting impact. The laity’s view is that the priesthood is a vocation, not a calling; hence if you throw in lots of money, athornans will put on priestly garb.
Priests still advise, nay exhort their sons not to take up the priesthood. They view it as a thankless, low paying and even degrading occupation where they are dependent on the largesse of their lay clientele. The fire temples, madressas are nearly all built by lay people. Unlike Christian or Muslim priests who wield considerable clout and initiate and run many institutions aside from churches, the Parsi priesthood has adopted the system more prevalent amongst the Hindus. Could it be that as both Hindus and Parsis follow a restrictive, hereditary caste based system for entry into the priesthood, new blood and fresh thinking have been stifled?
In some Hindu religious trusts, however, the government has taken over the management as in Tirupati when it was alleged the huge sums received from devotees were not being channeled as they should. Instead of a separation of church and state we have an unhealthy and unholy alliance of both. View the history of the church in Europe where monarchs and priests conspired together, at the cost of good governance and religious sanctity. And in modern day Iran one sees the devastation wreaked by a theocratic state.
And yet surprisingly, contemporary Zoroastrian religious reform has originated in a fundamentalist Islamic state. Women have been initiated into the priesthood with the blessings of both the Iranian clergy and laity. In India our high priests are too parochial to contemplate such a step; and if they dared to then vested laypersons would browbeat them into withdrawing such an edict.
The Iranian clergy is often ridiculed for not observing all the tarikats (traditions) and rituals which the Parsis sometimes slavishly follow in India. And yet Iran is where Zoroastrianism has its roots. They are the true torchbearers of the faith. Anyone can enter their fire temples. There is no racial or religious bar. If we cannot emulate their actions at least we should examine, discuss and debate the reforms instead of dismissing the measures offhand.
In Udvada the priestly anjuman felicitated Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for his efforts in declaring the revered south Gujarat coastal town a heritage site. One of the high priests went so far as to wish that Modi returned to celebrate 10 years from now the Iranshah’s 1,300 salgirah as prime minister. Allowing for the cloud that hangs over the chief minister for his acts of omission during the 2002 Godhra riots where members of another minority community were slaughtered while the police remained spectators, the remark was both insensitive and politically incorrect.
The clergy cannot take sides politically. Whether a Congressperson or a member of the opposition becomes prime minister, the church has to stay neutral. It is only when atrocities are being committed, where the weak are oppressed that the clergy has to speak out. They have to be on the side of morality, not a particular political party. The Vatican’s silence and some even say complicity with the Fascists and the Nazis during World War II remains a blot against their name. So also when they opposed scientific findings because they conflicted with some of their religious beliefs. Remember Galileo Galilei. He was tried, censured, made to recant by the Inquisition and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life for endorsing Copernicus’ theory that the sun was stationary and the earth circled around it. When Thomas Becket tried to enforce the church’s edicts vis-à-vis the state, Henry II inquired of his loyalists who would rid him of Becket. They obliged by beheading the archbishop.
The on-going tussle between the clergy and the community will not finally be decided by the courts of law alone but by reason, debate and a clearer understanding of each other’s role. In a democratic state functioning under the rule of law and governed by a modern day constitution, dialog and discussion is the way to resolve conflicts. There is no other path.
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