“Flooding in the main?”

While on the surface old traditions and beliefs appear to hold sway, there is an undercurrent of change. At the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) meet on September 13 and 14 this year despite the near sweep of office posts by the conservative World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ), delegates voiced sentiments that at one time would have caused a riot. For example at an earlier FPZAI meet in Ahmedabad in 2004, the president of the Madras anjuman, Nariman Mogrelia referred to a poll conducted amongst the local community to elicit views on whether the children of Parsi women married to non-Parsis should be permitted entry into the Jal Phiroj Clubwala Daremeher. Though the results showed over 80% of the respondents favored permitting them entry, Mogrelia said no decision was taken. His narration of that fact plus his utterance of the word Inshallah (God willing) when referring to the possibility of hosting a future FPZAI meet at their new/renovated hall, had sparked off bedlam at the time and disrupted the proceedings of the all-India meet for close to half an hour.
At the September Bombay meet the president of the Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat Brig (Retd) Jahangir Anklesaria spoke of the "overwhelming demand for an aramgah by the local Parsis who say ‘Please give us an option. Do not compel us to go in for cremation.’” The absence of vultures and the frequent breakdown of the solar concentrators renders the dakhmenashini system inoperative at times. When the noted Ahmedabad hotelier Jehangir Cama died in August this year, knowing his preference the family had him buried rather than cremated or consigned to the towers of silence. Requests made to the Christian and Muslim cemeteries were turned down, Anklesaria informed the gathering. (Cama was finally interred in a Baha’i cemetery.)
Aware that the high priests oppose a dakhma and an aramgah in the same city, Anklesaria said he was in search of a burial ground outside the city limits. The delegates present heard him in silence. There was no rancor expressed or shouts of "shame, shame” that normally accompany any proposed shift from tradition. And this, despite the fact that the Gujarat anjumans, many of them staunch WAPIZ loyalists and orthodox, were present in large numbers. They had just selected as the vice president from their West Zone B, Sam Chothia, the managing trustee of the Valsad anjuman that gained notoriety for banning entry to their fire temple and Doongerwadi to Parsi women married to non-Parsis. The ban is being challenged in the Supreme Court of India by former Valsad resident Goolrookh Gupta whose parents reside in the south Gujarat town.
The Mhow anjuman president Cyrus Mancherji informed the gathering that they intended to "create an aramgah on 11 acres of land, a little away from the dakhma.” This was considered a better alternative than cremation. (Some of the high priests state cremation is preferable to burial. But many lay people prefer burial as they can visit the grave and pay their respects. The high cost of acquiring a plot, buying a casket however is a deterrent to many abroad who then opt for cremation. Some people are also opposed to burial because it ties up land, a scarce resource.) Mancherji cited the example of Bangalore where both a Parsi aramgah and a dakhma co-exist. (In Bangalore, the dakhma was constructed though an aramgah existed. The dakhma adherents moved the courts to have the aramgah closed stating both could not co-exist in the same city/town. The court turned down their plea.)
A poll conducted on Parsiana’s behalf by the reputed Hansa Research Group last October/November showed that 80% of Bombay Parsis favored prayers being said for those opting for cremation and even the use of Doongerwadi bunglis for the funerary ceremonies. The Karachi anjuman already permits their properties including the Doongerwadi bunglis and a fire temple to be used for prayers for those opting for cremation or burial.
While informing the audience about the Return to Roots program, Dr Shernaz Cama of Parzor mentioned that they had included the children of Parsi women married to non-Parsis in certain programs. Being a signatory to the UNESCO guidelines that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, they could not do otherwise. Only where the local laws or customs did not permit equality -- such as entry to a fire temple -- were they exempted from practicing gender bias. Plus the funding they received from the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA) and the World Zoroastrian Organisation (WZO) barred them from discriminating on the grounds of gender. Even the once orthodox Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe accept the children of Parsi women married to non-Parsis as members.
The Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation (ZYNG) representative Viraf Mehta briefed the delegates on the next all-India youth congress to be held in Bombay this October. When Anklesaria, who is married to a non-Parsi, said that his children who had attended a youth meet earlier, had faced discrimination, Mehta assured him this would not occur at a ZYNG get-together. "We realize you have to be open-minded. The more you control, the more you push, they will definitely do what you don’t want them to do,” he counseled.
The biggest jolt to the all-India body came from the Delhi anjuman who proposed far reaching liberal reforms to their constitution. These include defining a Parsi as "one born of a Parsi parent” as versus one born of a Parsi father or both Parsi parents, expanding the definition of a member to "a Zoroastrian male or female of the age of 18 years or above” and, what created the biggest stir, the right for non-Parsi spouses to be permitted to be interred in the Anjuman’s aramgah. The reforms have now been referred to a committee for consideration.
Whatever the setbacks, there is little doubt that slowly and steadily attitudes are changing. As Arthur Hugh Clough states in his classic poem, Say not the Struggle Naught availeth:
"For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets makings,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.”