“This is not religion”
After 110 years the Davar-Beaman judgment in Petit vs Jeejeebhoy is finally being revisited in the Calcutta High Court. Calcutta resident Prochy Mehta was aggrieved that her navjoted grandchildren after attending the E. B. Mehta Agiary for several years were denied admission by the newly appointed panthaky. Mehta’s daughter is married to a non-Parsi. The grandmother filed an originating summons in February 2017 asking the Court to interpret the trust deed keeping in mind the Indian Constitution that does not permit discrimination between the sexes. A hearing may take place as early as this June.
A Parsiana Facebook page update on the news that was broken by the Calcutta edition of The Times of India and disseminated in the community by social media activists Jehangir Bisney and Dara Acidwalla, received over 300 reactions, comments and shares, with 90% rooting for Mehta and her grandchildren. One of the few voices opposing Mehta was Yazad Karkaria who offered "kudos to the priest for taking such a bold stand to safeguard the tenets of the religion. The Parsi community has not only survived but prospered adhering to the tenets of the religion for over 1,000 years in India. What is the problem suddenly?" Rashna Desai commented, "So when the last Parsi dies, what will happen to the fire temples? You think they will be barred to all? They will become museums. We are a dying community. Face it."
They will probably be sold off or encroached upon rather than become heritage monuments.
In the case of Goolrookh Gupta, a Bombay resident originally from Valsad, the provocation for moving the courts stemmed from a resolution by the south Gujarat anjuman banning Parsi women married to non-Parsis admission to the local fire temple and Doongerwadi. Concerned that she would not be permitted to attend the last rites for her aged parents who live in Valsad, Gupta moved the Gujarat High Court in Ahmedabad. When two of the three-member bench ruled that a woman took on her husband’s religion after marriage, even if solemnized under the Special Marriage Act, Gupta moved the Supreme Court. A hearing may be held in August.
In Dadar the Parsi Central Association has filed a case against a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi (see "Some home truths," Readers’ Forum, pg 8) stating under the covenant her non-Parsi husband and children cannot reside in the premises. Her mother alleged it was discrimination for similar suits were not filed against Parsi men married to non-Parsis. The PCA lawyer’s response does not deal with this issue of gender discrimination.
Following the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) executive council meeting on April 29 and 30, Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) chairman and FPZAI president Yazdi Desai wrote to the minister of minority affairs withdrawing support for the appointment of former BPP trustee Dinshaw Tamboly to the National Commission for Minorities (NCM). Desai claimed that 90% of the community is orthodox and did not support Tamboly’s nomination as the Zoroastrian representative on the Commission. But the letters favoring Tamboly’s appointment and a questionnaire sent out by Parsiana to the anjumans represented at the last Federation meeting showed over 90% supported Tamboly’s appointment (see "A minority decision," page 27). A handful of West Zone anjumans may oppose Tamboly’s nomination. They comprise less than 10% of the community. The Government of India 2001 census figures put the total Parsi population at 57,264.
Speaking to the mid-day daily, Yazdi Desai stated, "People like Tamboly and (a former NCM appointee Keki) Daruwalla think it’s shameful to talk about race but they don’t understand that most Parsis are orthodox." Desai was clearly equating racism with orthodoxy.
As Justice Frank Beaman stated in 1908 in his judgment in the Parsi Punchayet case pertaining to the conversion of Suzanne Briere, Ratan Tata’s French wife who was the mother of J. R. D. Tata: "The defendants expressing as we now know the orthodox Parsi views, are prepared to overlook immorality, bastardy — anything but alienage. They are ready to admit any and every Irani Zoroastrian about whose antecedents they cannot possibly know anything. But they will not admit the purest, most blameless foreigner, of whose character and conduct they may have the completest assurance. They will admit all the illegitimate children of Parsi parents, begotten of prostitutes or kept-mistresses, but they will not admit the noblest, more exemplary foreigner. Why? Because a foreigner is outside the caste, and caste is an institution into which you must be born. Of the modern Parsi they say emphatically nasautur non fit. This is not religion, it has nothing to do with religion: it is essentially distinctly irreligious; but it is pure unadulterated oriental caste."
Behind the acts of the Valsad, Calcutta and Dadar occurrences there is a strong streak of racism and sexism. Parsi men can marry non-Parsis but not be hounded out of trust accommodation. The children of Parsi men married to non-Parsis are considered Parsis and can avail of all the rights accorded to Parsis. The Parsi women who marry out of the community often find themselves and their children shunned and even denied entry to places of worship.
Delhi and Karachi officially permit Parsi women’s children admission to the fire temple while Jamshedpur allows them but has not formalized the arrangement. The two anjumans demonstrated a pragmatic and bold approach to a troubling issue. Calcutta dithered over the issue of admission for several years, discussing the pros and cons whilst permitting the status quo to continue. Madras also vacillates. Instead of anticipating the worst and introducing reforms, they prefer the courts rule on the matter, absolving them of all responsibility.
This failure of leadership caused issues that could have been dealt with amicably by the community itself to be taken out of their ambit and turned over to the judiciary. So also with Tamboly’s appointment. Instead of the community deciding, the government is forced to take a painful decision: whether or not to appoint the most qualified person for the post.
Desai believes the liberals are out of sync with community sentiments. But if the BPP were to have a professional poll taken the results may surprise him. A Donald Trump may win in the US on a racist and sexist platform. But in France and the Netherlands the racists lost. The candidate who won the most votes in the 2015 BPP elections was Noshir Dadrawala, a former traditionalist turned moderate. Perhaps Desai and his supporters are the ones out of touch with community sentiments.