Awaiting a second flowering

There is a tiny community of Parsees in Pakistan, India has lost many more Parsees to migration and, most of all, to a falling fertility rate on account of late marriages and the small family norm, but also because of a growing number of spinsters as a result of there being fewer male partners within the community and the ‘‘disowning’’ of children born of mixed marriages. According to orthodox tradition, only offspring of marriages among pure Parsees are recognised as certified Parsees. ‘‘Miscegenation’’ has caused ‘‘excommunication’’ and erosion in the number of those counted among the ‘‘faithful’’, while consanguinous marriages may have had adverse genetic consequences over time.

In the event, the community may face extinction in another 50 years. The extinction of a great people is an unimaginable prospect and would imply the end of a glorious and unbroken world civilisation going back almost 2,500 years. The Parsees came from Persia to India centuries ago and are part of the warp and woof of the extraordinarily rich Indian tapestry.

What is India? It is not just a geographical expression or a compendium of histories. Nor even the simple sum of the 4,700 communities listed in the monumental ‘People of India’ series that make up the sovereign ‘‘we’’ who gave ourselves a Constitution in 1950. It is all this and more. It is an idea, a tradition and a value made up of a myriad streams and subtle fragrances that have mingled to make us what we are.

India is a unique amalgam. It is home to all but one or two of the extant world religions. Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh faiths were born in this country. Christianity came to the shores of Malabar in 52 AD with St Thomas the Apostle, making the so-called St Thomas Church one of the very oldest in the world. Likewise, Islam came to India in the lifetime of the Prophet. It came to the Malabar coast with Arab traders who sailed the monsoon. These very same trade winds took Hinduism and Buddhism to southeast Asia and overland to Central Asia and China, where they nurtured or enriched trans-Indic native cultures.

Judaism also came to India in two or more waves in very early times and took root around Cochin and Bombay. The Zoroastrians came to Gujarat 500 years ago and sought refuge from a Hindu ruler who was moved by their plea that far from crowding his territories or depriving his subjects of their living, they would add to the sweetness of their lives much as a grain of sugar in a tumbler of water.

All of this accommodation of plurality owes to the generous humanism and tolerance of Hindu society, which has been its genius through the ages.

Since then, the Parsees have served India zealously. The roll of honour lists Dadabhai Naoroji, Madam Cama, Pherozshah Mehta, Jamshedji and JRD Tata, Homi Bhabha, the Wadia shipbuilders, Minoo Masani of ‘Our India’, A. D. Gorwala, Yezdi Gudevia, the Godrejs, Zubin Mehta, Rohinton Mistry, Sabavala, Aloo Dastur, Banoo Coyajee, Avabhai Wadia, H.M. Seervai, Fali Nariman, Soli Sorabjee, Bobby Talyarkhan, Russi Karanjia and other notables.

India’s Jews are an even more vulnerable micro-community. Most have migrated to Israel. Nissim Ezekiel recently passed on. General J.K.F. Jacob and Leela Samson are fortunately with us. How many? Too few. The government of India has a responsibility to ensure that the Parsees and Jews, like the Onges and Jarawas of the Andaman and Nicobar chain and all other nano-communities are sustained and supported. They are too precious to lose.

Two years ago, UNESCO celebrated the 2500th birth anniversary of Zoroaster. The Parzor (Parsee-Zoroastrian) Society organised a splendid exhibition that provided a glimpse of a wonderful, unbroken civilisation, an ornament in India, with a sprinkling of followers in Iran and Tadjikstan. The Iranis of Bombay arrived later and are perhaps of a slightly different stock and have contributed kitchens of delight.

India needs the Parsees to remain in India. That grain of sugar once given as a token of communion and a continuing civilisational compact cannot now be unilaterally withdrawn.

What, then, can be done? First and foremost, it is incumbent on the Parsees to perpetuate themselves through sensitive social reform initiated by and within the community. Younger marriages and larger families must be encouraged. Secondly, can the Parsee-Irani divide be bridged? A dialogue between leaders of these two communities is necessary. Thirdly, contacts should be established with Zoroastrians in Iran and Tadjikstan and younger members of those communities attracted to India for its educational and employment facilities. Fourthly, the Indian Parsee and Jewish diaspora could be eligible for dual citizenship under certain conditions.

Finally, the National Integration Council should be reconstituted to consider these and a host of other matters related to building fraternity, social reform and the management of diversity, all of which call for urgent attention. There can be a second Parsee flowering. Those Parsees fatalistically awaiting euthanasia must know that it is unacceptable that they fade into the sunset.