“Two main strains”

Extracts from the keynote address delivered by noted jurist Fali S. Nariman on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the Kaikhushru Pallonji Katrak Dar-E-Meher on December 19, 2011. (The third and final installment of "Golden glow” will appear in our March 21st, issue.)

It is not that I feel concerned about Zoroastrianism; it is Parsi Zoroastrianism in India that is in real danger. One reason is that we Parsi Zoroastrians in India have been a pampered lot. We have never had to fight for our faith.

First the Mughals under the great Emperor Akbar, were so greatly impressed by Dasturji Meherji­rana that from that time on he and his successors showered favors on us. Then the British trusted us and gave us knighthoods, and then a succession of Indian governments have all accommodated us and helped us so that we now take our faith for granted. We don’t have to fight for it as some of our compatriots have to do in other countries as in Iran…

Fali Nariman: respect all views

The continuity of Parsi Zoroastrianism in India may be in doubt. It is believed that we will be a mere 20,000 heads in 2050 — at the end of the first half of the 21st century. But I like to think that the continuity of Parsi Zoroastrianism is assured in the New World — in the Americas: in Canada and the USA where over the last few decades many of our compatriots have migrated. The religion is already flourishing there though not to the liking of some…

It is there that Parsi Zoroastrianism will not only survive, it will definitely flourish. A new brand of Parsi Zoroastrianism is already in place in the Americas.

This is why Parsi Zoroastrianism has a future because it is in the Americas that efforts are being made to keep our faith alive — small coteries of people, not agiary-going, but culturally one with the Parsi Zoroastrians in India, are making superlative efforts to know and understand the religion of our forefathers and explain it to their children. And many of these children are from mixed marriages.

In India, however, the demographic figures… disclose a disturbing trend — a steeply declining trend — which is a challenge. But how is this challenge to be met? Not with acrimony and confrontation.

There is a section of our community led by many honored priests who are firmly against the suggestion that the current demographic trend be reversed by accepting mixed marriages and by accepting the progeny of mixed marriages into the faith. My plea to all of you is let us not take up arms and quarrel with this sentiment.

Instead, let us accept that which is a fact today — that there are two main strains of Parsi Zoroastrians — the first prevalent mainly in Bombay, the orthodox strain, and the second and an updated strain of Zoroastrianism (which likes to call itself liberal) in places outside Bombay — like for instance in New Delhi and largely in the Americas.

Traditional Zoroastrianism is very much anchored in its Persian and Indian roots, and in that much publicized and widely believed promise that our forefathers gave when landing on Indian shores — one of which was to keep our identity to ourselves and not to convert others to our faith. The traditionalist view strongly recommends marriage only between Zoroastrians and propagates the notion that only Parsi Zoroastrians should beget Parsi Zoroastrians.

And the reason why I ask you to accommodate this point of view is because it is a very minor concession. Current demographic research has confirmed that the bottom-line in the decline of the Parsi population in India is not so much the flight of Parsi Zoroastrians through marrying outside the fold, as the abysmally low fertility of our own hamdins…

Some effort at accommodating conflicting points of view is needed for the survival of Parsi Zoroastrianism, or else this minuscule group of ours is going to wear itself out through serious inter­necine disputation. I suggest for your consideration that we respect the views of the priests and the views of those who take an opposite view to some of you and me.

Tension is good for us — like in the law I always say that tension between courts and the government is good for citizens, it helps keep us all on our toes. The tension between the orthodox and not so orthodox — each vying with the other that they are the true Zoroastrians — is good because it helps to keep the balance.

And above all we must not — I beg of you — never indulge in violence. If a person says he is a Parsi Zoroastrian because his navjote ceremony has been performed by a priest — then according to me he or she is on the right side of the law.

To beat him up for this assertion is un-Zoroastrian. The right course for the orthodox is to take him to court and get an injunction against him from entering the precincts of the fire temple. If granted well and good, if not granted, well then it is the law. We must abide by the law. We are a rule-of-law community. We have lived, survived and prospered because of law, never because we operate outside the law.

So please beware of and eschew a fight to the finish because the victim will only be true Zoroastrianism which we all profess to love and to propagate.

In a fight to the end it is the historians of the 22nd century who will pick up the bits and pieces, left of us, and record how badly we behaved in the 21st century.