Calling all Parsi Voters, Your Attention Please...

D-day is here – the first of three successive ‘voting weekends’, which will bring us our ‘Super Seven’ for the brand new BPP board! By now, much murky water has flown under the bridge and the reflections we’ve been seeing of many a candidate, courtesy the conjectures made by rivals, are rather morbid.

Not surprisingly, most Parsis are incessantly asking: Who do we vote for?

There is confusion, uncertainty and apprehension. Many people are finding it difficult to pick seven straight aces from a pack comprising quite some jokers! However, it is our contention that we should desist from getting personal.

While expressing a point of view is perfectly valid, attacking another person isn’t. Everybody is entitled to follow their own path. It’s only when this jeopardises our faith that we must protest, not against the person, per se, but against the path he/she is pushing us to pursue.

Every determined Zoroastrian who stays steadfast to the faith is Ahura Mazda’s soldier – and His army can never be vanquished. Each voter today is one such soldier, and needs to value the unique gift that has been bestowed upon us through Universal Adult Franchise.

To make an unwise decision would be to let down future generations, because the wrong people within the apex body will set the wrong agenda that will undo centuries of our unique and lustrous lineage, and the standing of our community, which has to be preserved, without cutting corners.

So, who do we vote for? The answer is simple: Let us vote for those who are completely committed to preserving the faith, without any compromise. We need to vote into power people who have, time and again, defended the many pillars of Zoroastrianism, including Dokhmenashini, not merely by empty words, but by actions that have upheld its sanctity, even as they have worked toward strengthening this esteemed institution.

Yes, we need to vote for people who have not succumbed to the pressure of supporting the demand for a ‘Cremate ni Bunglee’ at Doongerwadi, because that was never the intention of the Settlors when they created a community haven for Dokhmenashini. This, however, isn’t the only issue.

We need to vote for people who are not pro-conversion, and be very wary of those who talk about ‘Parsi-panu’ rather glibly on public platforms (but are actually supporting agencies that are setting up so-called ‘Cosmopolitan agiaries’). The purity of our agiaries is paramount, and opening them up unwisely will only accelerate intermarriages and the final decimation of our fold. In olden days, even if five Parsis went to a small town in India, the wealthiest among them established an agiary, a dar-e-meher, or a dadgah in the house.

They survived in very small numbers in the remotest Indian outposts (Kanpur, Agra, Allepi, Hubli and so on), only because they were staunch. How can we, today, slight their sacrifices by suggesting that what they did was old-fashioned and we need to “move with the times” instead?

On the contrary, we need to vote for people who have worked with, and will continue to work with, and not against, the learned High Priests, whose guidance on religious matters is crucial to our community.

This humble submission is placed before you: If you have a medical problem, won’t you go to a top doctor? If your accounts are a mess, will you not take the advice of competent Chartered Accountant? If you need to build a bungalow or redo your home, won't you engage an architect/interior designer? Then why is it that on religious matters we don’t go to our learned High Priests (the best possible experts on the subject), but allow a section of the lawyer lobby to lead us into the Courts instead, where mostly non-Parsi judges (with the greatest respect to them) are expected to deliver religious interpretations of our ancient and sacred faith?

Think about it. We need to save our community from such misguided litigation and the consequences thereof. We most certainly need to vote in new Trustees who will stand firm by the faith. And not sympathise with all those who want to scratch their private itches publicly, while inflicting open wounds upon the community, expecting the courts to then embalm their aberrations!

We need to vote into the BPP Trustees who have done some service to the community, which has served our best interests, because past performance is a good judge of whether future promises will be borne – or still born.

Accelerated education for our youth, empowering them professionally, encouraging marriages within the community at an earlier age (with a focus to facilitate a two-child family, with some childcare infrastructure in the baugs), looking after the aged, and a vibrant agenda that energises the community is the need of the hour.

We need Trustees who can deliver this. And, there’s no reason why, with the community’s support, they can’t.

Carefully, thoughtfully, and with a prayer, we need to cast our votes – for progress, along with preservation. Let us have a BPP Board that will bode well for our community and our religion. All else will follow. Because if we lose our religion and Zoroastrian ethos, nothing else will matter.

PS: The picture atop this blog is of the ruins of Persepolis. The Parsis lost all they had in Persia. Will the same happen in India again, if people who aren’t committed to the faith get elected as Trustees and end up destroying our legacy… one sincerely hopes not.

Who Wants to Be a Parsi Punchayet Trustee!

This is a historic moment for the Parsi community. For the first time ever, through the newly formalised Universal Adult Franchise scheme, community members will be able to vote for the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) elections commencing October 4 onwards.

What is also unique is that all seven trustees will be elected simultaneously. Previously, every time a seat or two fell vacant upon expiry of a term (or a Trustee), elections for just that seat (or two) would be held via a closed system that did permit the participation of the entire community.

This time its all seven seats at one go and the entire community (or at least those adult voters who have registered) can step out and stamp their favourites on the ballot sheets. While various luminaries, and some not quite so luminous folk, have offered their services for the top tickets in the community’s apex organisation, much mayhem ensues.

Apart from a lot of independent candidates, two dominant groups, the traditionalists and the reformists, are fighting each other in a bloody war of words, values, and vituperation. The valour is missing, or at least misplaced. While some guys have some growing up to do, the community has important issues at hand. Although all the candidates are promising to resolve them almost effortlessly, it’s pertinent to point the predominant ones out:

1. FLAME OF FAITH: Why did the Parsis come to India? A sense of history is crucial in these times of instant self-gratification. We fled Persia because of the threat to our religion and undertook an arduous journey with only one intention – to preserve the faith, with which our identity is inextricably linked. Once in India, previous generations, full of illustrious achievers, stuck steadfast to religious principles, without cutting corners for convenience or political connivance. Today, we need Trustees who genuinely appreciate and abide by the doctrines of the faith and, in matters of dispute, do not discount the counsel of our learned High Priests. The Catholics don’t pooh-pooh the Pope, the Hindus don’t slight their Shankaracharyas, nor do the Muslims marginalise their mullahs. But some haughty Parsis heckle the High Priests and, surely, our Trustees shouldn't be from their ranks?

2. IT’S MONEY, HONEY: This seems to be an election based on money power. Pages are being bought in publications and, in some cases, publications are being bought over entirely (although surreptitiously) to advertise not so much the ideology of the controlling group, but to malign rivals. This is certainly a first. So are flashy campaign meetings with refreshment boxes, glib power point presentations, huge billboards, glossy pamphlets and video shows, being held all over with staggering frequency. While this may be a casualty of contemporary commercialisation, it’s interesting to see who is financing whom, and why. Let us scratch the surface and uncover who the key financiers are, because they could control the candidates they are fielding, like the infamous remote control! And in cases where individuals are self-funding to the extent of spending crores on their campaign, the community is wondering why?

3. WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA: On the face of it everybody, no matter what their persuasion, reformist or traditional, is claiming the same manifesto. They all want to preserve the religion, resolve the housing crisis, look after the aged, and generally wave their magic wands and turn the Punchayet pumpkin into a fantasy carriage that can fly us to the moon! But before we go over it in ecstasy, let us put promises aside and check the track record of each candidate. What have they done for the community in the past, how well have they served the faith, and have they kept the faith at all? There’s a lot of big talk. How many can walk the talk?

4. MORAL OF THE STORY: Ethics are a clincher. Being a small community, it’s not difficult to discover the ethical core of each candidate. Whether its financial dealings, spiritual and religious leanings, or behavioural gleanings, we need to create an ethical scorecard for each and segregate those who top from those who flop.

5. CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT: The Punchayet cannot be the exclusive preserve of any one group, much as they may want it. Those who are excessively groupie and cannot collaborate for the larger interest of the community will be a liability. If there’s one thing our current BPP Trustees were unanimous about, it was that there was nothing they were ever unanimous about! The ability to rise above infighting is essential.

As we get into the coming weeks more ideas will emerge, more insights accrue. But there are certain fundamentals we cannot compromise upon in our quest for the Super Seven. Is the Parsi community up to the challenge? You bet! Surviving and thriving despite the odds is, like longevity, in our bawa genes.

Parsi Politics: Desperate Times

With the elections oncoming, dishing the dirt on one probable Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) candidate after another seems to be the community’s pass time. As the date draws closer, and the contest gets more capricious, the daggers, which are already drawn, will dig in deeper still – and the wounds will be more vicious.

Even the US Presidential elections, keenly as they are being contested around contentious causes, appear like a gentle garden party compared to our street-fight style of ballot battling.

ACRIMONIOUS ACRONYMS
What a pity, isn’t it? Increasingly, one is becoming disappointed by our lack of grace. For years, one has held on, steadfast to the notion of all we stand for – integrity, impeccable public conduct, personal decorum, a value-based upbringing that isn’t violated by opportunism, and respect for others.

All of that seems to have been subverted in the past few years as a slew of Acrimonious Acronyms slug it out for power. Whether it’s AZA, WAPIZ, ARZ, BPP, AIMZ, PRG, WZO, AFP, and whatever else, all of them have been embroiled in petty politicking and desperately trying to outmanoeuvre each other, whilst simultaneously attempting to manipulate the community into supporting their ideology and actions.

The result is the Parsis are today so fractured, so faction-ridden, so frayed that we have lost the very essence of who we are. And each of the Acrimonious Acronyms has played its part in the process. In trying to grab their slice of the community cake, all they have left are crumbs.

Average Parsis are not concerned with the perennial warring between groups. While ideologies can be debated and points of view countered, petty personal attacks are pointless. They only sully the ethos and atmosphere of the community, filling minds with mistrust and hearts with misgiving.

SURFEIT OF SCEPTICISM
Today, there’s not a single leader, or possible leader, amongst Parsis, who has not been shred to shards. Nobody trusts anybody any more, least of all if the person is standing for elections. Attacks are launched, fast and furious. This leaves the community confused, cantankerous and crushed. After all, if you cannot trust anybody to lead you, what purpose are the forthcoming elections going to serve?

As it is, nobody gets along with anyone. If the final Parsi Punchayet Board is going to be a coalition, with differing ideologies and personal egos pulling in very contrary directions, with the Trustees themselves having been discredited by their detractors, what are we thrusting the apex organisation of the community into – irretraceable chaos?

Perhaps, all those who are whipping up passions like egg whites in a badly set soufflé need to understand that we’re all falling flat. What we need, more than ever before, is cooperation and communion. Differing points of view have their place, but not at the cost of our unity.

Mutual respect will have to replace rancour and disruptive rivalry. There are far too many issues we need to focus on for our very survival as a community today, and these are far more crucial than our differences. We need Trustees who understand this, and inspire faith in the community that they can collaborate effectively. We can sometimes agree to disagree. But to be disagreeably disagreeable all the time is defeating.

May the coming months bring us the unity we so desperately need, and the leadership to take us ahead.

(This post first appeared in Jam-e-Jamshed)