Pejorative portrayal of Parsis

In early January 2005 when former British Army officer Roy Trustram Eve, OBE, DL (Member of the Order of the British Empire, Deputy Lieutenant) met me, he remarked, "Rajesh, I thought that the Parsis were a very upright and sophisticated lot but I was amazed to read that they were near aboriginals and went around looting hapless British fugitives including women and children during 1857 armed with bows and arrows!” The same thing was mentioned by many British visitors to India who met me that year.
Eve was the last adjutant of the 1/60th Rifles which in 2005 was known as The Royal Greenjackets and is now The Rifles in the British Army. He came to India every year till he died of colon cancer in 2010. Totally committed to his regiment, he was forever eager to find out where in India the regiment had been stationed in 1857. He was also publisher for the Royal Greenjackets Museum.
Eve presented me with a book on which his belief about the Parsis was based. The Indian Mutiny 1857 by Saul David was published in 2003 by Penguin, UK. David, a professor and military historian, has a PhD from Glasgow University on the origins of the Indian Mutiny. On reading the book I was so astounded at the errors that I was constrained to write a detailed letter to the publishers in 2005 listing 17 mistakes. Here is my letter to the CEO (chief executive officer), Penguin Books Limited, 80 Strand Street, London WC2R ORL, England:
"Dear Sir/Madam,
"Subject: Feedback — The Indian Mutiny by Saul David ISBN 0-670-91137-2
"I wish to give some feedback on your aforesaid publication. I had the opportunity to go through some parts and found them lacking in terms of accuracy, content and analysis and feel that the subject (should) be handled in greater depth before being published. My observations appear below with the relevant reference page number. The list is only indicative and not comprehensive...
"11. Pp 177 Reference to Parsis/Parsees. Another blunder. The term should be Passees, who are engaged as watchmen. Parsis or Parsees are extremely respectable people and will never ever indulge in such activities, which have been attributed to them. If the reference is from state papers you should have mentioned a correction by way of a footnote-* The term refers actually to Passees and not Parsees or Parsis. Shows edit cut copy paste attitude and total lack of knowledge about India. Parsis have an unblemished record ever since they landed in India. It is all the more ironical since India’s only true Field Marshal is a Parsi — the late Sam H. F. J. Manekshaw MC (Military Cross) of 8 Gorkha Regiment... and since the author’s research in India is funded by a trust run by ex Indian Army Generals.”
The paragraph in question reads: "We sat there a long time. Then some men came, not sepoys — Parsees, with bows and arrows. They used to be watchmen I think. They saw my dress, and were evidently pitying the poor murdered people. We kept still and asked them to help us. They said they would take us to a better place, which they did… Later on they came back and took us further into the jungle. In the early hours of the morning, however, the Parsis announced they would go no further. Mountstuart had already bartered his pistol for some food and handed over his sword as a goodwill gesture. His boots he had given to his barefoot sister, tying leaves around his feet with strips of handkerchief as a substitute, while she had been tricked into handing over their last weapon, a rifle. With nothing more to acquire, the Parsis wanted to return home. When Mountstuart objected, the tallest Parsi stepped forward and drew back his bow. Madeline intervened by placing her arms around her brother who eventually conceded that they would have to continue alone.”
It is stated that the information was sourced from the Jackson Narrative, National Army Museum 6409-67-I, 4-5 and 5-8 and State Papers G. W. Forrest (ed) Selections from the Letters, Dispatches, and Other State papers preserved in the Military Department of the Government of India 1857-58 4 Volumes (Calcutta 1893-1912) II intro.31.
Penguin did respond to say that the letter had been sent to the author for comments. David never responded.

Pausees or watchmen
Pausees or Passees were watchmen in what is now Uttar Pradesh who often resorted to looting. In his book, A Journey through the Kingdom of Oudhe, Maj Gen Sir William Henry Sleeman explains their modus operandi in detail in the chapter titled "Depredations of the Pausees.” Sleeman wrote: "The people of towns and villages, having no protection whatever from the government, are obliged to keep up, at their own cost, this police of Pausee bowmen, who are bound only to protect those who pay them. As their families increase beyond the means derived from this, their only legitimate employment, their members thieve in the neighboring or distant villages, rob on the highroads, or join the gangs of those who are robbers by profession, or take the trade in consequence of disputes and misunderstandings with government authorities or their neighbors. In Oude — and indeed in all other parts of India, under a government so weak and indifferent to the sufferings of its subjects — all men who consider arms to be their proper profession think themselves justified in using them to extort the means of subsistence from those who have property when they have none, and can no longer find what they consider to be suitable employment.”
Sleeman was the world’s greatest ever policeman who eliminated thuggery, a cult of Kali worshippers whose followers, the thugs, killed roughly 40,000 people each year.
During my childhood I had studied with Dr Cyrus Shroff, the well known ophthalmologist of Delhi and in the course of my professional life I have dealt with many Parsis such as Khushroo H. Captain, Dara Mehta, A. R. Wadia, J. B. Dadachanjee, Ruby Daruwalla, Lt Gen Adi Sethna, Rohinton Nariman and many others. All of them had been thorough professionals and utterly upright in their dealings.
Since nothing was done to rectify matters by the author and publishers, I sought an appointment with Sethna who was a member of the National Minorities Commission. I apprised him of the misrepresentation of Parsis in David’s book which I found disturbing. On reading the relevant paragraph he felt likewise, and more so when he came to know the impression this was creating on readers like Eve. Sethna immediately drafted an email to his friends in Bombay and London stating:
"The jacket says ‘it is written with energy, insight and authority, and casts fresh light on this extraordinary event (Indian Mutiny) and challenges many assumptions.’
"One of the assumptions is the role of the Parsis (page 176-177), which I quote: ‘Parsees with bows and arrows. They used to be watchmen I think.’ These Parsis are shown as tricksters and robbers.”
Having handed over the baton to the most appropriate person in the Parsi community and a former Indian Army General, I relaxed. I am not aware of what happened later but my conscience is clear that I played my part to the best of my ability.
(Many persons mentioned in the aforesaid paragraphs are no more.)