“Great service”

Renowned senior counsel Navroz Seervai has written an extraordinary, detailed and learned commentary on the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) case regarding the ban on two "renegade” priests in The Times of India of May 4, 2011 ("Great service,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, May 21, 2011). In it he clearly sums up how incompetent the present trustees are by stating "the judgment delivers a message to the community more powerful than the ruling itself — clearly it is a wake up call for a community that is today suffering from a lack of leadership and vision.”

The BPP trustees have misguided the ill-informed members of our community for a long time, throwing dust into their half open eyes, blinding them to the truth. Themselves nameless wonders who have indulged in indisputable deceit and managed miraculously to escape not mere offensive acts but criminal behavior, Seer­vai’s elucidation of the trust deed will strip them of their impunity and audacity that has looked down on the illustrious erudite members of the community who humbled them in the Bombay High Court.

The half-a-dozen self-styled leaders are an affront to our intelligent community which is now wise to the third rate natak (drama) indulged in by an irresponsible coterie of cunning charlatans and their Taliban cronies. Long ago Parsiana had forewarned them about the hornet’s nest they had stirred when they picked on the intellectually elite — the cream of Zoroastrian society whom both the High Court judges referred to as people with an impeccable record of contribution to the country and the community. Let the community vociferously acknowledge the intervention and support lent by the late Dr Keki Grant, Tehmtan Andhyarujina, Anu Aga, Jamsheed Kanga, Homi Khusrokhan, Seervai, Dr Rustom Soonawala and other notables who pursued these deceivers and drove them to ignominious defeat.

What do the BPP trustees have to their credit? Do they know anything about the background of the illustrious people they chose to pick on? It took Seervai’s father, the inimitable Hormasji, seven years to produce a monumental work on The Constitution of India. One doubts whether the trustees have read even the Preamble to the Constitution. Andhyarujina can be entrusted by the Government of India to look after the country’s legal affairs and the trustees believe they could play with people of such stature! And of course these ridiculous unworthies would be shocked to know the colossal status of senior lawyer Iqbal Chagla’s origin. With the decency typical of men of outstanding merit, Chagla ignored the attack on him in the pathetic paid WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) Page in The Free Press Journal and showed up to the world WAPIZ and the BPP’s incredible insignificance. Chagla’s father, the redoubtable M. C. Chagla, was a legal luminary of distinction far beyond the comprehension of jokers and clowns like Areez Kham­batta.

The time and money-wasting trustees of the BPP have indulged in taunts, jibes and humiliation to drive fellow trustee Noshir Dadrawala into resigning from the board. A poor Zoroastrian child died of starvation without the ruthless trustees giving a dole, but they could spend more than a crore of rupees on vexatious litigation. They have defrocked a Russian, beat up an eminent lady scholar and advocate, threatened and intimidated Zoroastrians like Roshni Maloo, using violence to back their ridiculous claims to "irreligious acts.” Despotism cannot be condoned by Zoroastrianism. But then there are many old-fashioned pseudo orthodox irrational persons for whom "upholding religion” supersedes the law of the land. They forget that they were given sanctuary, shelter and the privilege to prosper in this land.

The only hope now is for the community to boot out these pretentious, impious representatives with collective action. As Seervai has said, the alarm bell has been sounded and the wake up call can be ignored at our peril.

RASHID G. KHOSRAVI