The Dadar duo
Few women contest the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship elections and hardly ever has there been a face-off between two main female contenders. Of the 23 contestants in October 2015 only two (less than nine percent) were women. This time both sitting trustee Armaity Tirandaz and former BPP trustee Arnavaz Mistry are busy campaigning door-to-door, a gruelling but effective manner to reach out to voters. Both are social workers residing in the Mancherji Joshi Colony, Dadar and support the orthodox point of view. Neither sees eye to eye on issues, with Tirandaz being in the camp of the former BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta and Mistry initially aligning herself with the Mehta group and then the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ). Both originally supported the ban on the two priests who prayed for those opting for cremation.
Three other male contestants are unlikely to pose any electoral threat to the two ladies. Chartered accountant Xerxes Dastur declined to stand replying to Parsiana’s text message query sent on March 2 with the comment, "Am going to give this one a rest." Dastur had stood seventh amongst the 23 candidates in the October 2015 elections. Five were to be elected to office. Had Dastur stood a second time, some people believe he would have benefited from the split in the Dadar vote between Tirandaz and Mistry, while others felt he would have drawn the anti-Mistry votes, thereby hurting Tirandaz and helping Mistry. The candidate who stood sixth, publisher Maneck Davar, turned down persistent requests to stand again.
Recently when the daughter of a Parsi mother and non-Parsi father applied for enrolment in the BPP Holiday Programme for Youth (HPY) held every May for students who have completed their 10th year in school, Tirandaz voted along with the present BPP chairman and WAPIZ founder trustee Yazdi Desai and Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation (ZYNG) founder member and BPP trustee Viraf Mehta to oppose admission. Trustees Noshir Dadrawala, Kersi Randeria and Zarir Bhathena favored the girl participating. A tied vote meant the chairman has a casting vote so the student cannot join the month-long program.
Mistry also has the support of Randeria and thereby his Parsi Times (PT) weekly. Mistry campaigned for Desai’s re-election in October 2015 and WAPIZ will no doubt return the favor. Mistry is the better known candidate and in the 2008 elections was the highest vote getter. The odds appear to favor her.
So for which candidate should the liberals vote? Tirandaz is close to Dinshaw and Muncherji Cama, both with liberal leanings. But as can be seen from her vote on the HPY issue, she will side with the orthodox. How Mistry would have voted is uncertain. She is close to both Desai and Randeria but her electoral loyalties may lie more with Desai. In the 2008 elections Randeria did not support her candidature and put up a "dream team" of highly qualified professionals and eminent people against her, Dinshaw, WAPIZ and all the others. For the current election her candidature came as a surprise to Randeria who was puzzled that she informed a member of the Parsiana team she intended to contest before she reportedly told him. (Parsiana had carried an item on her standing for office on our Facebook page on January 19, 2016. At that time Randeria and several others were taken aback and many questioned the veracity of the report.) Even Mistry’s daughter Yasmin had stated her mother was not a candidate.
Whether Mistry or Tirandaz is elected, the liberal versus orthodox tussle will remain a tie. Neither is a liberal.
The dispute over the seat of the seventh trustee, Cama, still hangs fire. Whether his resignation is valid or not is being contested by Dinshaw before the Charity Commissioner. Those opposing his return, namely WAPIZ, are ensuring the matter drags on till Cama’s term ends in August 2018. In the meanwhile, there are two opinions on whether Cama can be present for the BPP trustee meetings until the dispute is resolved. He stopped attending around a year ago.
But irrespective of the BPP’s leanings, change is occurring. The Gujarat anjumans that favor burial on the doongerwadi grounds are gaining strength. The death of Ervad Homi Kotwal in Navsari and his subsequent burial in Vansda is a devastating blow to the shrinking proponents of dakhmenashini (see "Navsari priest opts for burial," Events and Personalities, page 12). The orthodox did their best to discredit the incident alleging initially Kotwal did not die in Navsari and that he had been "defrocked." But the executor of his will Yazdi Kasad, trustee and secretary of the Samast Anjuman, Navsari, refuted all the charges. On the other hand, an orthodox priest has been removed or resigned from an agiary in a Bombay suburb due to allegations of moral turpitude.
A vote on permitting the Gujarat anjumans to use the doongerwadi grounds for burial was scuttled at the last West Zone B meet of the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) in Surat on August 2, 2015 by zone vice president and WAPIZ ally, Sam Chothia. At the forthcoming FPZAI all-India meet on April 2 and 3 in Bombay, the issue may crop up again. Whether the rank and file from Gujarat will be present and push for a resolution is to be seen. Not that a nod from the FPZAI is required. At the Surat meet, one anjuman said they had already gone ahead and started burial and were not waiting for anybody’s sanction. The associations are all autonomous. The FPZAI cannot interfere in the internal matters of an anjuman unless asked by the anjuman to do so. Desai as de facto president of the all-India body will probably try and sabotage any move for reform. Liberal anjumans like Delhi unfortunately stay away from the meetings.
In Bombay around 15% of Parsi bodies are being cremated at the new Prayer Hall at Worli, which commenced operation in September 2015. Chairman of the Prayer Hall Trust Dinshaw Tamboly has stated in an interview in PT (March 5, 2016) that 13 priests have been enrolled for performing the obsequy ceremonies. Initially just Ervads Khushroo Madon and Framroze Mirza were available, with an assistant mobed or two.
If the FPZAI and the BPP are to remain relevant to the community, they must realize they cannot turn the clock back. Time marches on. Either one keeps pace or is left behind.