Brave, new media world
Perhaps it was inevitable. The mercurial Areez Khambatta, who has severed ties with many institutions and individuals, resigned this July after 11 years as chairman of the organization he founded and funded, the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ). The Rasna soft drink concentrate founder and magnate cited the Bombay Parsi Punchayet’s (BPP) stoppage of advertisements in the Jam-e-Jamshed Weekly (JJ) and the WAPIZ Page’s support for the action as justification. He even stipulated characteristically that henceforth the July 8 WAPIZ Page which appears in The Free Press Journal would be termed the "Non WAPIZ Page"!
The next Friday, July 15, the WAPIZ Page noted Khambatta’s resignation was "unanimously accepted" while at the same time praising his contribution "to WAPIZ and the orthodox cause." BPP chairman and WAPIZ founder trustee Yazdi Desai has taken over as the new WAPIZ chairman.
The traditionalist body which championed orthodox causes was founded in 2005 by seven like-minded individuals in the wake of the tumultuous Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India meeting in Ahmedabad in 2004 when Khambatta was president of the Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat. Parsiana’s report on the meet relating Khambatta’s actions resulted in his abruptly terminating this journal’s back cover advertising contract. At that time he was the publication’s largest advertiser. Over time WAPIZ became moribund and even the WAPIZ Page appeared sporadically. The name also began to be associated with everything that was arcane and retrograde.
Like the Committee for Electoral Rights (CER) that championed the cause of registering voters on the BPP electoral rolls but over the course of time became defunct, so also WAPIZ served the purpose of scuttling any truly representative world Zoroastrian body and then went into hibernation. WAPIZ’s influence, despite its grandiose name, barely reached beyond the borders of Maharashtra and Gujarat. While Khambatta’s resignation and the presumed stoppage of funding, may affect the body’s functioning the latest WAPIZ Page publicized its "charitable activities."
July was generally a tumultuous month for the BPP. The controversy over the flat allotment to well-known homeopath Dr Farokh Master and the stoppage of advertising in the JJ spilled over into the general Press. The two controversies could have been handled better by the BPP trustees. After all, the Master flat was allotted over three months ago at the urging of the Wadia family scion Nusli Wadia, with all the six trustees signing the leave and license agreement. The Wadia family has bequeathed five colonies to the BPP and the trustees felt obliged to accede to his request. Eminent jurist Fali Nariman had also proposed that Master be given a flat.
The trustees could have explained that at present they are not accepting payment for transfer of flats and hence Master’s allocation did not cause a financial loss to the BPP (see "A house for Dr Master," Events and Personalities, pg 14). They should have prepared a press release stating their reasons for giving him the flat though his income was above the limit specified. Instead they kept quiet and handed their opponents a golden opportunity to malign them.
Similarly, the stoppage of advertising in the JJ could also have been explained as a move to save the trust money since the weekly’s competitor, the Parsi Times (PT) agreed to carry the public notices and advertisements free of cost. The proprietor of PT Kersi Randeria is a trustee of the BPP and therefore did not want to profit from the trust office. His gesture would save the BPP a few lakh rupees annually. Instead of receiving praise, his gesture resulted in his critics contending he made the offer to popularize his paper and victimize JJ (see "The weekly and the magnate" pg 24).
The PT has also started a monthly column "BPP Connect" wherein the trustees "will keep the community informed about the ongoing and future activities and any change in policies carried out at the BPP." The issue of July 2, 2016 carried an article by Desai while the issue of July 9 carried articles from all six trustees on the Master allotment and the JJ advertisement stoppage.
But PT cannot be a substitute for the BPP having its own media organs. An independent publication such as PT has to serve as a watchdog on community institutions. Can PT criticize the trustees while at the same time be their public face? As it is the present board is divided four to two on many contentious issues, including the stoppage of advertising in JJ. The BPP needs its own publication, website, Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram accounts if the trust is to function in an electronic and media savvy community. The trustees should be in a position to respond at a moment’s notice to any impending crisis or adverse publicity.
The Parsis are a high profile community and the general Press is always on the lookout for stories. Therefore one has to anticipate developments, not merely react to them. Any person with a smartphone is a conveyer of information, misinformation, half-truths and lies. Unlike established media houses, some individuals who disseminate news function like loose cannons. There are no checks and balances to temper their statements. They can write without worrying about the truth or the consequences.
Only the last board of trustees and the present one have faced such an eventuality. If the trustees want to function in an information fuelled world, they must learn how to cope with this new reality.
The trust also needs to lay out a clear editorial policy so that the BPP media outlets are not utilized to state partisan views as happened in the past but rather of the board of trustees. Individual trustee’s grouses can be taken up in the Parsi media, WhatsApp, social media and other non-BPP outlets.
There is nothing new about parties banning advertisements in publications, television channels and elsewhere. Every time politicians, corporates and individuals decide to boycott a media outlet, they often find their message not getting through to their intended audience. It is not only the circulation or viewership of the medium that is critical, but also its impact and clout. As JJ editor Shernaaz Engineer noted in the mid-day of July 5, "Almost every one of the BPP trustees… has come to JJ over the years to get their message across to the Parsi community."
The lesson to be drawn by those holding public office is that you can’t fight with the media. Rather you have to find ways to live with them.
Errata
In "Building and breaking barriers" (Editorial Viewpoint, Parsiana, May 21, 2016) we had stated that a booklet published by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA) carried a passage pertaining to the sugar in the milk myth purporting to be from the Qisse-i Sanjan but in fact is not. The book was published by the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York. Parsiana regrets the error and apologizes for any embarrassment caused to FEZANA.