“A favorite minority?’

In your editorial "A favorite minority?” (Parsiana, December 7, 2015) you write: "While enjoying all the benefits of a pampered though deserving community, most Parsis sadly are unsympathetic to the plight of other less privileged minorities. They have little or no love for Muslims and barely tolerate members of the scheduled tribes and castes.” I take exception to this. By your assertion of unsympathetic prejudices that Parsis supposedly hold against Muslims and scheduled caste Hindus you have done the community a great disservice.
Most Parsi families depend primarily on these very communities for their daily sustenance. Our pavwallas, goshwallas and machhiwallas (vendors of bread, meat and fish) are predominantly Muslim. Shoe shops, leather goods shops, especially those selling the "fancy” stuff, are mostly Muslim businesses. Many pavement stallholders as well as roadside vendors are Muslim entrepreneurs. And I’ve only scratched the surface.
The ladies who sweep and swab our homes, and clean our utensils, often without even a weekly off, are neither Brahmins nor Kshatriyas. Nor are the dabbawallas who deliver tiffin boxes in a six sigma system, or the men who wash our cars, or the cobblers who repair our shoes and umbrellas and broken luggage zips. Here again, I’ve only scratched the surface.
In return, these communities treat us with respect and implicit trust. Tell your eedawalla (egg vendor) that an egg was rotten and he will replace it immediately, no questions asked, no evidence sought. The housemaids may call us eccentric and insane behind our backs, but deep down they know there is fairness in our dealings.
Let us not demean the minorities to ingratiate ourselves with the majority, our respected Prime Minister’s goodwill for us notwithstanding.
KERSASP R. DADACHANJI
dadakr@gmail.com