How useful are WZCs?

The periodic World Zarathushtrish Congresses (Zarath=golden, Ush=bright/shining, tra=star, ish=a community as in English, Irish, etc) brings to mind the Avestaic word HanjaMana, meaning "a gathering (Hanja=gathering, Mana=of minds/intellectuals).” It is from that word that our community anjumans have derived their nomenclature. They are meant to be forums for intellectuals to deliberate over community matters.
The word HanjaMana is frequently used — in Avestaic sentences — to denote the confluences of rivers. The analogy conveyed thereby is that sweet river water flowing from different springs which, on its way absorbs different minerals and attains beneficial properties of its own, meets at the confluence and mixes to form a homogenized mineral rich water. Just as individual rivulets enrich the soil, seep in to create underground water reserves and benefit animal life all along their route, the resulting enriched water benefits vast territories of land and ends up in boundless lakes and oceans to nurture marine life as well.
Avestaic sentences that use the word HanjaMana, in different grammatical versions, end with "Yazamaide,” meaning "To be revered to the point of worship.”

The idea of consultative means of helping/running a community and the desired respect extended to its elected leaders go back to the praise and importance that Prophet Zarathushtra himself attached to such bodies, termed as the body of Magavans (Yasna Ha. 25, para 11, Yasna Ha.33 para 7 and Yasna Ha.51 para 16). Our community members and leaders need to attach similar piety and reverence to the elected management committee bodies of their anjumans, and vice versa.
Apart from the forming and running of individual anjumans, during the recent past diverse problems faced by our community have called for the holding of periodic territory-wise and world congresses so as to bring together the managing committees of various associations, community leaders and think tanks as well as laymen to promote awareness of social and community unity, discuss and sort out community problems and shortcomings. The prevailing means for arriving at such decisions is via individual speeches and the holding of panel meetings for group discussions. The outcomes of such group hearings are analyzed, approved and announced in the form of a final resolution that lists actions and commitments to be followed by heads of anjumans, community leaders and the laity.
The organization of such Congresses involves massive funds and great expertise in management. To raise the required funds, monetary assistance is sought from charitable minded members of our community and through contributions by participating individuals by way of regis-tration fees, etc.
After such spending so much energy and money, do such Congresses achieve their expected results in that their resolutions are binding on the managing committees, the participants and the community in general? So far honoring and carrying out of the Congress resolutions appears to have been implemented in a very lax manner. If that is true, how useful and wise would it be to continue holding such expensive, time and energy consuming world get-togethers. Present day telecommunication technology such as video conferencing could be considered for organizing future WZCs with much less cost and trouble.
Besides, with such arrangements, near-heart-failure-causing shocks could be prevented, such as the recent fiasco in which our community’s most high profile body, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet’s management thought they had the right to sacrifice the 10WZC proceedings because of their internal wranglings. Or could the idea of cancelling the 10WZC have stemmed from the "traditional” elements’ inability to tolerate certain minimum liberalism in allowing the "untouchables,” according to their beliefs, to participate?
It is my sincere prayer that reason, logic and intelligence should prevail in all our community undertakings.

The seniormost priest and long serving managing board member of the Iranian Anjuman e Mobedan, Mobed Mehraban Firouzgary has been conducting Avesta classes and was instrumental in initiating male and female mobedyars in Iran. Refused admission to the M. F. Cama Athornan Institute in Bombay at the age of 12, he completed his schooling from Boys’ Town, Nasik and his graduation in electronics from St Xavier’s Technical Institute. After working for 10 years at J. N. Marshall, he returned to Iran to pursue his professional and religious calling.