Online connectivity

"What comes out of the study of these websites is that Zoroastrian associations need to be visible online to bring together the community offline and let people know of their existence; websites also provide many ways for Zoroastrian community members to initiate a variety of activities and build up the particular identity of their association.” This comment was made by David Knaute in his dissertation in April 2012 on "Discovering the Zoroastrian e-diaspora.” Writing his PhD thesis on the Zoroastrian diaspora for the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, that is due for completion by mid-2013, Knaute’s research concerns the outmigration of Zoroastrians from Pakistan and contemporary diaspora communities in the UK and USA. During his research period in 2009-10 he interacted with members of the community in Karachi, Gujarat, Paris, London, Manchester and Boston.

"What immediately comes out of the visual analysis of the 159 websites which form the corpus is the high concentration of websites based in the US and Canada (37 percent). This shows the growing importance of the North American diaspora, which so far represents only about 10 percent of the overall Zoroastrian population but has already become very influential. Indian and Iranian websites make up 20 percent of the corpus each,” he reports. As he observes, using the Internet is a necessity for North America to connect isolated communities to one another while the clustering of Zoroastrian communities in India and Iran reduces the need.

As compared to 20 North American (15 in USA and five in Canada) Zoroastrian associations that have their own website, only six associations in India and five in Iran have their own website, states Knaute. Others in the diaspora who have their own association websites are UK and Austrialia which have two each, and one each in Pakistan, New Zealand, Sweden, Russia and Kuwait.

As he further points out, of the 33 Iran-based websites and blogs, only six are in English or include an English section indicating that Zarathushtis in Iran are isolated from the Parsis who have little knowledge of Persian. There are 15 other Iranian websites based outside Iran. In contrast, India-based web­sites are all in English.

Knaute realized that the "Web also represents a gold mine for many Zoroastrians to access information and find direct answers to their queries. Some website managers put online very elaborate tools to help their coreligionists learn about Zoroastrianism. One example is Ahura-Mazda.com: An objective of the website is to create awareness amongst Zoroastrians; with an interactive prayer book, people can pray while at work. People, young and old, use the website for teaching, reading, doing assignments at the university.

"The Web also gives space to esoteric schools of thought, which also exist offline but remain quite under­ground…The corpus includes 13 web­sites or webpages that partly or fully fall under this category.” Included in the list by the researcher are Zoroastrianism Basics, the online version of Frashogard, the journal of Ilm-e-Khshnoom, the Traditional Zoroastrian website, Fravahr (study of Aryan history), the Saga of the Aryans Home Page, the Association for Revival of Zoroastrianism, Parsi Avaz, the World Zoroastrian Information Center, the Association of Avestan astrology about Zoroastrian faith, Zoroastrian magazine Mitra, azaintis, the Zoroastrian College, the website on Zoroastrians and Parsis in Science Fiction.

Further, "the e-diaspora clearly reflects the complexity of intra-community divisions between different Zoroastrian communities and schools of thought. In that sense the Web is not a solution to the long-standing opposition between orthodox and liberals which is particularly characteristic of Parsi communities in India and widely reproduced in the diaspora… Fierce debates can also occur in some chat rooms or Yahoo group sites…” Popular among liberals is the website of the Zarathushtrian Assembly that has posted many articles by Ali Jafarey.

Non-Parsis who run Zoroastrian websites after opting to pursue Zoroastrian tenets are Joseph Peterson who controls Avesta.org and Ronald Dela-vega who is in charge of the Restored Zarathushtrian Community of Miami (also referred to as the New Age Zoroastrian Society), says Knaute, adding, "The analysis of the corpus interestingly shows that the religious website with the best references is Peterson’s while others remain quite marginal…Peterson, a convert himself, initiated his website in June 1995, making it one of the oldest websites in the corpus, with the purpose of sharing e-texts and letting the original source works speak for themselves.”

In the field of matchmaking "the web has certainly proved to be revolu­tionary…(facilitating) marriages between Zoroastrians residing in the diaspora and/or a home country, or even between two Zoroastrians living in the same country. The Zoroastrian Matrimonial Page which may be the most advanced matrimonial website, has been active on the Internet since early 1996” claiming a membership of thousands.

Of the 14 websites focusing on sharing information, some are "living-dead,” having been abandoned or not updated, and some are "showcase” websites like Ahura.thelalis.com which gives access to the Zoroastrian calendars. It emerged that two popular ones that "have more nodes than the others are Zoroastriansnews.com and Zoroastrians.net, the latter created by Yazdi Tantra even has a chat service for the community that "talks a lot.” One of the Yahoo groups that claims the most members (6,692) is Zoroastrian News Agency. Yet another group that helps Zoroastrians worldwide to reunite is Themissing Parsi.com created by Ader Gandhi.

Dedicated to Zoroastrian heritage and culture are 12 websites that are "quite isolated.” However the "most advanced and resourceful project is Parzor,” initiated in 2002 by Dr Shernaz Cama of Delhi that aims to preserve tangible and intangible community heritage.