Editorial Viewpoint
Goolrookh, Arthur and George
There are several indications that Yazdegirdi 1383 may be a happy new year. The most heartening news is the intervention of 18 prominent citizens on behalf of Goolrookh Gupta in her legal battle against the Valsad Parsi Anjuman (VPA); heartening because several of the interveners are people who normally shy away from community controversies. Only the grave injustice being done to Parsi women and all Indian women in general compelled them to come forth (see "Supporting women’s rights,” pg 46).
The VPA had passed a resolution some years back barring admission to their fire temple and Doongerwadi property to Parsi women married to non-Parsis even if they married under the Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954 and continued to profess the Zoroastrian religion. Two judges of the three-member bench of the Gujarat High Court held that under the SMA a woman takes on her husband’s religion. Gupta is married to a Hindu. She appealed to the Supreme Court which has set the matter for hearing in February 2014.
No intervention applications have been filed so far in support of the VPA. While there are many who support the VPA’s gender bias they may not want to appear to endorse a judgment that states the wife follows her husband’s religion. The non-Parsi wives of Parsi men would then be considered Zoroastrians, something totally anathema to traditionalists.
The presence or absence of reputed interveners does not alter the merits of a case. But their participation in the process gives an indication of the seriousness of the dispute and the wider ramifications of the justices’ ruling.
At the turn of the 19th century, the most prominent Parsis of their day were involved in community affairs. If one reads the early trust deeds of community charities and institutions one will come across the names of people like Dadabhai Naoroji, Jamsetji Tata, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Sir Dinshaw Petit, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Sir Dinshaw Vacha, Behramji Malabari, Sir Shapurji Bengalee, K. R. Cama, members of the Wadia family, the Godrej family and many others.
In 1906 Sir Dinshaw Petit and others did not stand by idly when the traditionalists denied religious rights to Ratan Tata’s wife, a French lady who converted to Zoroastrianism. They took the matter to the Bombay High Court but when they lost they unfortunately did not pursue the logical course of appealing to the Privy Council in England.
As a result for over 100 years the children of Parsi women married to non-Parsis face discrimination. Even the women themselves were hounded and continue to be so.
In the so-called "renegade” priests case former municipal commissioner of Bombay and erstwhile trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) Jamsheed Kanga, and former Glaxo managing director and Tata director Homi Khusrokhan took up cudgels against the high-handedness of the BPP. Five prominent Parsis joined as interveners.
The BPP had barred the two priests from performing religious ceremonies at Doongerwadi and two agiaries controlled by the apex trust as the duo performed funerary ceremonies for Parsis opting for cremation. Kanga-Khusrokhan won before a division bench of the Bombay High Court. The BPP appealed to the apex court which referred the matter for mediation. Two years later, the talks are still on.
Perhaps the most prominent intervener against racial discrimination of a Parsi was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the indefatigable and infallible fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. In Julian Barnes’ novel Arthur and George (Vintage Books, London, 2005) Doyle assisted George Edalji, the son of a Parsi vicar, Shapurji and a Scottish mother, Charlotte convicted of a crime he did not commit.
When Doyle hinted that "your father’s origins” may have been one of the causes of his victimization, Edalji, a solicitor, replied, "I should like to make something quite clear. I do not believe that race prejudice has anything to do with my case…I was brought up an Englishman. I am a lawyer, Sir Arthur. What evidence do I have that anyone acted against me because of race prejudice?”
Doyle: "If I may make a suggestion perhaps you should try occasionally not to think like a lawyer. The fact that no evidence of a phenomenon can be adduced does not mean that it does not exist.”
The following discussion between Doyle and Captain George Anson who led the investigation against Edalji is indicative of the law enforcement officer’s mental make-up at the time.
Doyle: "The Parsis are known for their charity.”
Anson: "Ah, so suddenly he’s a Parsi?”
Doyle: "What do you mean?”
Anson: "You can’t have him a professional Englishman one moment and a Parsi the next… Some pathological development might occur, some tendency to evil in the blood might inevitably emerge… I do not doubt that it is the mixing of the blood that is partly the cause of all this…
"When the blood is mixed, that is where the trouble starts. An irreconcilable division is set up. Why does human society everywhere abhor the half-caste? Because the soul is torn between the impulse to civilization and the pull of barbarism…”
Doyle: "And is it the Scottish or Parsi blood you hold responsible for barbarism?…Are you saying that George Edalji slit the bellies of horses because that’s what his ancestors did five centuries ago in Persia or whenever they were then?”
Anson: "I have no idea whether barbaric or ritual practices were involved. Perhaps so. It may well be that Edalji himself did not know what impelled him to act as he did. An urge from centuries back, brought to the surface.”
Referring to Edalji being unmarried, Anson attributes the "hindrance is that your man’s a half-caste. Not many takers for that in Staffordshire.”
England has come a long way since then. So have the Parsis once steeped in the racial bias characteristic of an Anson.
Thus the news that the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE) now permit membership to a child of a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi is heartening. Arthur and George can now rest in peace. Another grave injustice has been corrected.
The VPA had passed a resolution some years back barring admission to their fire temple and Doongerwadi property to Parsi women married to non-Parsis even if they married under the Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954 and continued to profess the Zoroastrian religion. Two judges of the three-member bench of the Gujarat High Court held that under the SMA a woman takes on her husband’s religion. Gupta is married to a Hindu. She appealed to the Supreme Court which has set the matter for hearing in February 2014.
No intervention applications have been filed so far in support of the VPA. While there are many who support the VPA’s gender bias they may not want to appear to endorse a judgment that states the wife follows her husband’s religion. The non-Parsi wives of Parsi men would then be considered Zoroastrians, something totally anathema to traditionalists.
The presence or absence of reputed interveners does not alter the merits of a case. But their participation in the process gives an indication of the seriousness of the dispute and the wider ramifications of the justices’ ruling.
At the turn of the 19th century, the most prominent Parsis of their day were involved in community affairs. If one reads the early trust deeds of community charities and institutions one will come across the names of people like Dadabhai Naoroji, Jamsetji Tata, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Sir Dinshaw Petit, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Sir Dinshaw Vacha, Behramji Malabari, Sir Shapurji Bengalee, K. R. Cama, members of the Wadia family, the Godrej family and many others.
In 1906 Sir Dinshaw Petit and others did not stand by idly when the traditionalists denied religious rights to Ratan Tata’s wife, a French lady who converted to Zoroastrianism. They took the matter to the Bombay High Court but when they lost they unfortunately did not pursue the logical course of appealing to the Privy Council in England.
As a result for over 100 years the children of Parsi women married to non-Parsis face discrimination. Even the women themselves were hounded and continue to be so.
In the so-called "renegade” priests case former municipal commissioner of Bombay and erstwhile trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) Jamsheed Kanga, and former Glaxo managing director and Tata director Homi Khusrokhan took up cudgels against the high-handedness of the BPP. Five prominent Parsis joined as interveners.
The BPP had barred the two priests from performing religious ceremonies at Doongerwadi and two agiaries controlled by the apex trust as the duo performed funerary ceremonies for Parsis opting for cremation. Kanga-Khusrokhan won before a division bench of the Bombay High Court. The BPP appealed to the apex court which referred the matter for mediation. Two years later, the talks are still on.
Perhaps the most prominent intervener against racial discrimination of a Parsi was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the indefatigable and infallible fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. In Julian Barnes’ novel Arthur and George (Vintage Books, London, 2005) Doyle assisted George Edalji, the son of a Parsi vicar, Shapurji and a Scottish mother, Charlotte convicted of a crime he did not commit.
When Doyle hinted that "your father’s origins” may have been one of the causes of his victimization, Edalji, a solicitor, replied, "I should like to make something quite clear. I do not believe that race prejudice has anything to do with my case…I was brought up an Englishman. I am a lawyer, Sir Arthur. What evidence do I have that anyone acted against me because of race prejudice?”
Doyle: "If I may make a suggestion perhaps you should try occasionally not to think like a lawyer. The fact that no evidence of a phenomenon can be adduced does not mean that it does not exist.”
The following discussion between Doyle and Captain George Anson who led the investigation against Edalji is indicative of the law enforcement officer’s mental make-up at the time.
Doyle: "The Parsis are known for their charity.”
Anson: "Ah, so suddenly he’s a Parsi?”
Doyle: "What do you mean?”
Anson: "You can’t have him a professional Englishman one moment and a Parsi the next… Some pathological development might occur, some tendency to evil in the blood might inevitably emerge… I do not doubt that it is the mixing of the blood that is partly the cause of all this…
"When the blood is mixed, that is where the trouble starts. An irreconcilable division is set up. Why does human society everywhere abhor the half-caste? Because the soul is torn between the impulse to civilization and the pull of barbarism…”
Doyle: "And is it the Scottish or Parsi blood you hold responsible for barbarism?…Are you saying that George Edalji slit the bellies of horses because that’s what his ancestors did five centuries ago in Persia or whenever they were then?”
Anson: "I have no idea whether barbaric or ritual practices were involved. Perhaps so. It may well be that Edalji himself did not know what impelled him to act as he did. An urge from centuries back, brought to the surface.”
Referring to Edalji being unmarried, Anson attributes the "hindrance is that your man’s a half-caste. Not many takers for that in Staffordshire.”
England has come a long way since then. So have the Parsis once steeped in the racial bias characteristic of an Anson.
Thus the news that the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE) now permit membership to a child of a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi is heartening. Arthur and George can now rest in peace. Another grave injustice has been corrected.
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From the archive