BPP election issues

As the community readies itself for yet another by-election based on adult franchise, there are related issues with far ranging consequences that require some attention. Giving the vote to every Parsi and Irani Zoroastrian who chooses to register is in itself a fine democratic measure; to have a restricted electoral college as we did in the past appears antediluvian and not in consonance with the image of a forward looking community. However, past experience of elections under adult franchise has shown the need for some reforms in the electoral procedure and scheme.

At the root of this lie the time, effort and money spent to conduct the elections. The Bombay Parsi Punchayet, and by definition all its beneficiaries, that is you and I, spends cash resources to conduct elections, money which could have been better spent on welfare schemes. Candidates have their own expenditure and the scales are tilted in favor of those with deeper pockets; that is the bane of all elections.

In less than three years we have a third election thrust on us. The first was for a set of seven new trustees, the second because of the untimely and tragic demise of trustee Rustom Tirandaz, and the third caused by the resignation of Noshir Dadrawala. If a trustee has to have a full term of seven years it would mean that in the next round of elections five trustees would have to be elected first, then another election after present trustee Armaity Tirandaz finishes her term of seven years, and then a third election after the trustee who will be elected to fill Dadrawala’s seat completes his/her seven years. There could be even more elections between terms if there are any further deaths or resignations.

While elections may provide some entertainment, sport and free meals, it would be an untenable situation and a severe drain on resources to have three or four elections in the space of seven years. In the circumstances, it would be best for the terms of all the trustees to run concurrently, as is the case in our legislatures. If there is a vacancy caused during a seven-year term, the person who fills it would have a term running concurrently with that of the other trustees.

The post of all seven trustees would be vacated at the end of the seven year term, after which fresh elections would be held. To avoid the eventuality of a trustee having a very short tenure, by-elections should not be held within two years before a general election of seven trustees and the vacancy would continue until the elections.

I believe that the trustees are working on an electoral code of conduct and will approach the court at the opportune time to amend the scheme. I would like them to seriously consider this suggestion so that the community does not spend scarce resources on continuous elections.

MANECK DAVAR

ho@spentamultimedia.com

According to the Bhagwat Gita, whenever evil predominates over good, a messiah appears on the scene to rectify the imbalance.

The names doing the rounds for trusteeship of Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) clearly show a tendency towards WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zar­thoshtis)-minded individuals. The person who now seems to find himself in a very precarious position is the BPP chairman himself, as he would be the only one who isn’t a "kattar (diehard) orthodox WAPIZite.” He will now realize what Noshir Dadrawala had to go through. When the majority tilts in favor of dogmatism to further its so-called orthodoxy, the dissenter is always the odd one out. How long can one work in such an atmosphere?

Rules are being interpreted to favor the majority, and no one is afraid of being taken to court. After all they don’t pay the legal expenses from their own pockets; money entrusted to them for the betterment of the community is being right royally used for this. Who has the guts to ask them to pay?

This scenario is perfectly suited to further reduce the already dwindling number of Parsis in India. Those who can do so will pack up and leave for greener pastures abroad, and those who remain will be the ganya gathya old, unmarried, or issueless!

The only way to save us now is for a messiah to come and straighten things out!

RODA D. HAKIM

Baroda

vadhakim@yahoo.com

Soon the Parsis will be electing a new Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustee. In the past two years the BPP trustees have taken certain actions which are not to the liking of many of those who had voted them to power.

I challenge all the six sitting trustees to resign immediately and stand for re-election. Noshir Dadrawala and other Parsis should also contest. Let us see whether the voters re-elect the sitting six plus the one trustee who resigned and by what majority they throw out the existing ones and select a completely new board of seven.

Do the six BPP trustees have the guts to go back to the voters and persuade them to give them a vote of confidence? Will they remain stuck to their seats or will they rise to meet my challenge?

JAL DESAI

jaldesai@hotmail.com

A decade-and-a-half after the moral fiber of our redoubtable Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) was sent for a toss with the entry of the first of the misfit breed in 1996, the caliber of trustees on the current board bears silent testimony to this steady decline. Today the BPP has germinated into a chaotic and questionable kitchen cabinet with no one to guard the wayward custodians themselves. Much like politics, it has become the last arena for wheeler-dealers that self-respecting gentlemen are wary to tread.

The dynamics of Parsi politics underwent a fundamental change with the advent of a misapplied universal adult franchise (the hallmark of a political mindset). At this juncture with the resignation of the seventh trustee, the falling apart of the outward unity among remaining trustees in what was a hastily cobbled coalition of political convenience was a foregone conclusion. After the hounding of Noshir Dadrawala out of his full term in office, an election weary community is once again left facing yet another premature and gratuitous voting extravaganza.

The fissures in the BPP board are on public display and battle lines are drawn four against two with the youngest trustee allegedly orchestrating the betrayal opus. In a cloak and dagger drama within our charity trust boardroom that would put rogue politicians to shame, Mehta has shrewdly sounded his clarion call that he will not support Anahita Desai, wife of sitting trustee Yazdi Desai and a diehard WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) disciple.

Mehta has chosen to back an independent candidate of merit, Muncherji Cama. His stance is widely echoed across the community as on the propriety count Mehta has many supporters, even among his detractors. There is no legal backing for objection against a simultaneous spouse duo on the BPP board, but the motives behind Desai’s declared candidature sound warning bells. Such motivations spell danger of a nosedive into a void from where the community can never hope to put BPP back on its lofty pedestal.

With each one having his/her own axe to grind, the community’s interest is being ground to zilch by the current egocentric BPP trustees. There is only one way to eradicate this malaise — a dire urgency to knock on the Supreme Court doors to revert the trustees’ electoral scheme to our august charitable organization to pre universal adult franchise status quo ante. We need to go back to donors and their heirs/representatives, as benefactors alone should have the right to decide who will administer their donations meant purely for charity. Logically speaking, beneficiaries can rightly have no say on who gets into the BPP boardroom. This is the opportune moment to act before the once magnificent BPP is soon transformed into Desai, Mistry, Mistree and Associate.

Cama’s proposal and nomination testifies to the esteem in which he is held by his brethren and co-religionists. He enjoys the support of the best elements in the community, but at grass-root levels his supporters will have to work very hard with a door-to-door campaign to ensure his victory in these break-point elections if the community does not wish to see the BPP completely hijacked by upstarts and turned into a consortium of builders. Cama will himself have to wake up his swish set and neighborhood to step out from their ivory towers and vote if he has to trounce pulpit-thumping jingoists who jettison responsibility as mere custodians and overstep their mandated jurisdiction by playing on fear in the name of race and religion portrayed in jeopardy.

A fractured community awaits results with bated breath and fervently hopes outsiders in this big race don’t eat into crucial votes of the only worthy trustee material here — Cama — who alone can at this stage checkmate the miscreant sitting BPP trustees.

MICKIE SORABJEE

nashmick@hotmail.com

The forthcoming Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) elections have brought to the fore a young lady, Anahita Yazdi Desai, who has always shunned the limelight and worked silently without fanfare for important community causes.

I came in touch with Desai for the first time when I was a trustee of the Poona Parsee Punchayet. She was a part of a small but a very important group which mobilized the entire body of the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) against the dangerous world body which accepted converts as members.

Think of the enormity of the task before this small group and the blunder we would have made if the Federation had unwittingly joined such a cosmopolitan world body which would have in the end marginalized our tiny Parsi community completely.

This one single movement has taken the community and the Federation in a new direction, with a more positive focus on safeguarding the rights, interests and properties of even the smallest Parsi Zoroastrian anjuman.

That an overwhelming majority of the anjumans united to safeguard the community’s interests and that the cosmopolitan body was finally put to rest because of that is known to all. What is not known to all is the pivotal role Desai played in this entire episode. She was the coordinator of the group, constantly liaising with all the anjumans, putting before us the dangers of joining such a body, compiling data to be presented as proof of the danger and uniting us all for the common good of the community.

As the vice president of FPZAI, West Zone A, I can think of no better person than Anahita to occupy the august seat of a BPP trustee.

PORUSASP D MEHTA

Vice President, FPZAI

Poona

autobodybombay@gmail.com