Editorial Viewpoint
Goodness ungracious
The generous gift of Rs 10,00,000 (US $ 22,222) from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly (MLA) fund donated through the good offices of Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Mangal Prabhat Lodha for the painting of the Doongerwadi pavilions is an acknowledgement of the considerable esteem non-Parsis have for the community.
While no one can doubt the need for monies from reputable sources to fund community institutions and projects, one wonders if Doongerwadi is a worthy recipient of the cosmopolitan tax payers’ largesse.
No other institution in the community so blatantly manifests the racist and sexist policies of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) and its adherents as much as the towers of silence complex.
Non-Parsis are barred from entry to the prayer halls during all the funerary ceremonies. Further, they are prevented from paying their last respects to the deceased after the paidust prayers and before the corpse is carried with its face covered from the bungli to the dakhma. They are prohibited from partaking of the food prayed upon which can be eaten only by Parsis, the leftovers being fed to dogs and other animals.
If a deceased Parsi is married to a non-Parsi, the spouse is not permitted to be present for the ceremonies nor is he or she permitted to pay his/her last respects. Life long friends, associates, employees, business partners who are non-Parsis must all sit or stand outside the bunglis like pariahs. (Actually pariahs and other dogs — thoroughbred or not — are permitted entry to the bungli and are an integral part of the paidust ceremony. They view the open faced corpse during the ceremony, a sight barred to juddins.)
Any Parsi, be he or she a casual acquaintance, a passerby, a feuding neighbor, is permitted to sit in the bungli and file past the ruvan after the paidust. As Justice Frank Beaman stated in his judgment in the Parsi Punchayet case in 1908, “The defendants (BPP), expressing as we now know the orthodox Parsi view, are prepared to overlook immorality, bastardy — anything but alienage.”
If a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi wishes her body to be consigned to the towers of silence, on her death her family members have to produce an affidavit stating she married under the Special Marriage Act l954 and continued to profess the Zoroastrian faith till her demise. This affidavit is not required of Parsi males who marry non-Parsis.
At a time of considerable sorrow and stress it is sadistic, to say the least, to require grief stricken family members to procure such a document. Even after undergoing such ignominy, the woman’s body is consigned to a particular dakhma, one that is traditionally reserved for doubtful cases and for those who have suffered capital punishment.
The ban on two “renegade priests” is another example of such inane activity. The BPP has spent over Rs l,25,00,000 (US $ 2,77,777) so far on the mindless litigation. And to what avail? To bar basically one priest (the other accepted the ban after some arm twisting) four or five times in a year from performing Parsi Zoroastrian funerary ceremonies for Parsi Zoroastrians who wish to have their bodies consigned to the towers of silence; the duo are also barred from performing any religious ceremonies at the two agiaries managed by the Punchayet.
The litigation is still ongoing. Mediation talks have been dragging on for months. For each session, the mediator charges a fee of Rs l,50,000 plus air fare from Madras to Bombay and back, hotel/club accommodation, conference room bookings, meals, etc. In addition the BPP lawyers who attend the mediation hearing charge fees. The opposing party’s lawyers appear pro bono. The mediation costs are borne equally by both parties. The trustees have no worry as the amount is paid from community coffers. The original petitioners Jamsheed Kanga and Homi Khusrokhan pay from their pockets.
Should mediation fail then another crore of rupees of community funds could easily be spent by the BPP in fighting the case in the Supreme Court. The trustees have engaged top, non-Parsi lawyers who charge Rs 4,50,000 to Rs 5,00,000 for a hearing and Rs 25,00,000 for a day in court. For this amount the BPP could have reconstructed and refurbished all the bunglis at Doongerwadi, leave aside merely painting them.
With the community numbers dwindling (though some trustees dispute this) and the number of deaths declining to around 800 a year, the 11 prayer halls are underutilized; many families opt to have the subsequent funerary ceremonies performed at an agiary close to their place of residence.
On some days there are no funerals. So the loss of revenue to the BPP increases. But the trustees have opposed the use of the bunglis at Doongerwadi to Parsi Zoroastrians opting to be cremated or buried.
By permitting them the use of the bunglis, the BPP could earn not only more income but also goodwill. Instead they follow a dog in the manger policy.
One wonders whether our BPP trustees have nothing better to occupy their time and energies than finding ways to drive people away from the community and even more sadly the religion. The idle mind is indeed the devil’s workshop.
In the priests’ ban case, Bombay High Court Justice Dr Dhananjay Chandrachud time and again urged the trustees to adopt a more tolerant approach, counseling them to bring the community together instead of dividing it. His advice fell on deaf ears.
It is largely for all these reasons that many in the community refrain from donating money to the BPP. There is no transparency and zero accountability. The annual meet supposed, nay promised, to be convened by the trustees to give community members an account of the year’s events has not taken place for the last two years. Despite having a website and a monthly journal, the BPP accounts are not made public. Even the chairman’s message in the BPP Review has been reduced from two pages to one and contains hackneyed statements calling for unity, tolerance and understanding. The monthly journal has hardly any news on the trust or the decisions taken by the seven trustees. Whatever information comes out is through leaks or oversight.
The BPP’s income is derived almost solely from the fat transfer fees the trust earns each time a flat changes hands or the trust sells/leases a property. In these circumstances one would think the trustees would be grateful to any institution or individual who donates money to them. But no: the plaque acknowledging Lodha’s thoughtfulness was removed a day or so after it was put up on August 22, 2011. Calumny was heaped on the BPP for accepting money from the MLA’s fund.
At a time when charitable trusts welcome untainted funds, the citizens of Bombay and even Lodha must be totally baffled by the Parsis’ ingratitude. The ancients said, “Beware the Greeks bearing gifts” following the gift of the Trojan Horse to Troy. For the Parsis one would say, “Beware bearing the Parsis gifts.”
While no one can doubt the need for monies from reputable sources to fund community institutions and projects, one wonders if Doongerwadi is a worthy recipient of the cosmopolitan tax payers’ largesse.
No other institution in the community so blatantly manifests the racist and sexist policies of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) and its adherents as much as the towers of silence complex.
Non-Parsis are barred from entry to the prayer halls during all the funerary ceremonies. Further, they are prevented from paying their last respects to the deceased after the paidust prayers and before the corpse is carried with its face covered from the bungli to the dakhma. They are prohibited from partaking of the food prayed upon which can be eaten only by Parsis, the leftovers being fed to dogs and other animals.
If a deceased Parsi is married to a non-Parsi, the spouse is not permitted to be present for the ceremonies nor is he or she permitted to pay his/her last respects. Life long friends, associates, employees, business partners who are non-Parsis must all sit or stand outside the bunglis like pariahs. (Actually pariahs and other dogs — thoroughbred or not — are permitted entry to the bungli and are an integral part of the paidust ceremony. They view the open faced corpse during the ceremony, a sight barred to juddins.)
Any Parsi, be he or she a casual acquaintance, a passerby, a feuding neighbor, is permitted to sit in the bungli and file past the ruvan after the paidust. As Justice Frank Beaman stated in his judgment in the Parsi Punchayet case in 1908, “The defendants (BPP), expressing as we now know the orthodox Parsi view, are prepared to overlook immorality, bastardy — anything but alienage.”
If a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi wishes her body to be consigned to the towers of silence, on her death her family members have to produce an affidavit stating she married under the Special Marriage Act l954 and continued to profess the Zoroastrian faith till her demise. This affidavit is not required of Parsi males who marry non-Parsis.
At a time of considerable sorrow and stress it is sadistic, to say the least, to require grief stricken family members to procure such a document. Even after undergoing such ignominy, the woman’s body is consigned to a particular dakhma, one that is traditionally reserved for doubtful cases and for those who have suffered capital punishment.
The ban on two “renegade priests” is another example of such inane activity. The BPP has spent over Rs l,25,00,000 (US $ 2,77,777) so far on the mindless litigation. And to what avail? To bar basically one priest (the other accepted the ban after some arm twisting) four or five times in a year from performing Parsi Zoroastrian funerary ceremonies for Parsi Zoroastrians who wish to have their bodies consigned to the towers of silence; the duo are also barred from performing any religious ceremonies at the two agiaries managed by the Punchayet.
The litigation is still ongoing. Mediation talks have been dragging on for months. For each session, the mediator charges a fee of Rs l,50,000 plus air fare from Madras to Bombay and back, hotel/club accommodation, conference room bookings, meals, etc. In addition the BPP lawyers who attend the mediation hearing charge fees. The opposing party’s lawyers appear pro bono. The mediation costs are borne equally by both parties. The trustees have no worry as the amount is paid from community coffers. The original petitioners Jamsheed Kanga and Homi Khusrokhan pay from their pockets.
Should mediation fail then another crore of rupees of community funds could easily be spent by the BPP in fighting the case in the Supreme Court. The trustees have engaged top, non-Parsi lawyers who charge Rs 4,50,000 to Rs 5,00,000 for a hearing and Rs 25,00,000 for a day in court. For this amount the BPP could have reconstructed and refurbished all the bunglis at Doongerwadi, leave aside merely painting them.
With the community numbers dwindling (though some trustees dispute this) and the number of deaths declining to around 800 a year, the 11 prayer halls are underutilized; many families opt to have the subsequent funerary ceremonies performed at an agiary close to their place of residence.
On some days there are no funerals. So the loss of revenue to the BPP increases. But the trustees have opposed the use of the bunglis at Doongerwadi to Parsi Zoroastrians opting to be cremated or buried.
By permitting them the use of the bunglis, the BPP could earn not only more income but also goodwill. Instead they follow a dog in the manger policy.
One wonders whether our BPP trustees have nothing better to occupy their time and energies than finding ways to drive people away from the community and even more sadly the religion. The idle mind is indeed the devil’s workshop.
In the priests’ ban case, Bombay High Court Justice Dr Dhananjay Chandrachud time and again urged the trustees to adopt a more tolerant approach, counseling them to bring the community together instead of dividing it. His advice fell on deaf ears.
It is largely for all these reasons that many in the community refrain from donating money to the BPP. There is no transparency and zero accountability. The annual meet supposed, nay promised, to be convened by the trustees to give community members an account of the year’s events has not taken place for the last two years. Despite having a website and a monthly journal, the BPP accounts are not made public. Even the chairman’s message in the BPP Review has been reduced from two pages to one and contains hackneyed statements calling for unity, tolerance and understanding. The monthly journal has hardly any news on the trust or the decisions taken by the seven trustees. Whatever information comes out is through leaks or oversight.
The BPP’s income is derived almost solely from the fat transfer fees the trust earns each time a flat changes hands or the trust sells/leases a property. In these circumstances one would think the trustees would be grateful to any institution or individual who donates money to them. But no: the plaque acknowledging Lodha’s thoughtfulness was removed a day or so after it was put up on August 22, 2011. Calumny was heaped on the BPP for accepting money from the MLA’s fund.
At a time when charitable trusts welcome untainted funds, the citizens of Bombay and even Lodha must be totally baffled by the Parsis’ ingratitude. The ancients said, “Beware the Greeks bearing gifts” following the gift of the Trojan Horse to Troy. For the Parsis one would say, “Beware bearing the Parsis gifts.”
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