“Regressive thinking”

The following extracts are taken from an interview of former Valsad resident Goolrookh Gupta by journalist Lyla Bavadam that appeared in the Frontline fortnightly of August 21, 2013. Gupta is embroiled in a legal battle with the Valsad Parsi Anjuman (VPA) over a resolution barring entry to the local fire temple and doongerwadi to Parsi women married to non-Parsis, even under the Special Marriage Act 1954, who continue to profess the Zoroastrian faith.
In the August 7, 2013 issue of Parsiana excerpts from the applications of 18 interveners on Gupta’s behalf in the Supreme Court were published. There are no applications for interveners on behalf of the VPA to date.
"Until 2003, the rules for Parsi girls marrying non-Parsis were lenient in Valsad. There were no restrictions — the girls could even enter the fire temple. The Shroffs were the trustees those days, and the trust’s money came from the Shroffs of Hong Kong who were related to the Shroffs of Valsad. My mother is related to them. My father was a part of the trust right from his young days, and now, at the age of 79, he resigned because he was harassed. The Shroffs were liberal as trustees. In 2003, I attended the funeral of Jehanbux Chavda who passed away when he was the president of the panchayat. I attended all the Parsi ceremonies on all the days and no one stopped me… no questions were raised about my presence. Rusi Shroff was the secretary of the panchayat then and he was liberal. Both he and Chavda had even said that when they died their non-Parsi friends should be allowed to attend their funerals. Non-Parsis touched them and bowed before them and no one said anything.
"Valsad was a liberal place for Parsis, until my friend Dilbar Valvi, who is married to a non-Parsi, lost her mother. Dilbar went to the tower of silence for the ceremonies. She was sitting in a verandah adjoining the room where her mother’s body was kept. The pall-bearers told her that they would not handle the body if she did not leave. They said she was a Hindu and, therefore, had to leave. Her sister, also married to a non-Parsi, was present too. Both of them were shocked because when their father passed away, they were not prevented from attending the funeral. Dilbar left… as she did not want to hamper the funeral proceedings. She sat a (distance) away in a bungli (pavilion) built for non-Parsis…
"I was sickened by (the incident). Our prayers go on for one-and-a-half days; you can go insane thinking that you are away from these last moments. I spoke to my parents about this. My father tried to say that the new lot were orthodox, but my point was that you cannot make your own rules in the name of religion and custom. Here a progressive trust was adopting regressive thinking. I started writing letters to the Parsi punchayets in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Vadodara, Vapi, Daman, Poona, Valsad and many other places asking them what their practices were. I wrote to the Pardi panchayat, too. (Pardi) is close to Valsad but covers a smaller community, of about 150 Parsis. The president there is an uncle of mine. He is forward-thinking. He dismissed the Valsad panchayat’s practices as humbug. The Surat Panchayat said the same thing. In fact, the daughter of one of the (earlier) trustees is married out of the community and she freely visits all the fire temples and is involved in matters relating to the trust. The Ahmedabad and Vadodara panchayats were also supportive.
"The Valsad panchayat told my father to ask me to stop (mobilizing opinion). They even said they would let me attend my parents’ funerals. I said, ‘Give that to me in writing and also give it to me in writing that you will not stop any Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi from going anywhere or attending ceremonies.’ This fight is not for myself. It’s for those who don’t come from as privileged a background as I do and have no means to fight. They gave me nothing in writing, and I realized they were not serious. That is when I took the matter to the Gujarat High Court. My case was taken up by Percy Kavina in Ahmedabad who said he was waiting for a Parsi woman to stand up and fight for her rights, so he fought it pro bono publico…
"(The trustees) also do not allow women to be a part of the panchayat proceedings…
"When the current (VPA) president Burjor Pardiwala was a junior person in the trust, his father had passed away. His father had been a lawyer and Pardiwala’s stepmother had been a judge in the Gujarat High Court. Hence, a lot of prominent people from the bar were expected at the funeral. At that time, Pardiwala had pleaded with Pherozeshah Shroff, the then president of the panchayat, saying it would look bad if all the (non-Parsi) mourners were not allowed to pay their respects. Shroff was a liberal man, and so he had no objections to allowing non-Parsis at the funeral. My father reminded Pardiwala about this, but the panchayat president brushed it aside saying he had made a mistake at the time.
"There are many such instances of inconsistent behavior and changing rules to suit one’s convenience.”
Parsiana sent the portion of the interview pertaining to Pardiwala to him care of the Valsad Parsi Anjuman email address on August 22. His daughter Jasmine Baria phoned on August 24 to say her father was incapacited at the moment and the family had decided not to issue any clarification as the matter was before the Supreme Court. Pardiwala’s son, Jamshed, is a judge of the Gujarat High Court.