Parsis: survival demands change

While the crisis of numbers had early beginnings, the crisis of identity was, at first, no more than what any minority community faces: how much of Indianness to absorb so as not to appear conspicuous or attract the animus of the majority, and how much of one’s own culture along with one’s religion to retain so as not to disappear into the melting pot. It was a balancing act that, all said and done, the Parsis did remarkably well. Since they were forbidden to allow outsiders into the fold, they made it difficult for insiders to get out, and till well into the middle of the 20th century, marriage to non-Parsis was rare. This changed as the country itself underwent huge changes. With better education, particularly for women, western liberal ideas seeping in, emigration a possible option, the demographics of the community have been steadily changing in the past 50 years. Birth rates have fallen, intermarriages are frequent, and immigration to other lands has created new communities.

These processes are responsible for the dwindling numbers, which in turn has led to demands from some that old practices — particularly the one banning conversion — be reassessed. This is not as radical as it may sound. Parsi social laws are not set in stone but have evolved over the years. They have evolved precisely in order to ensure that a minority community survived in a changing environment. Many customs conformed to the prevailing ethos of the time. For instance, they gave up their language and changed their dress to conform to local custom. Change is thus not new to a community that used these to the full in order to survive and even flourish.

Yet, today, many have set their faces against change, whether it is in the way funeral rites are performed, or permitting the children of a Parsi mother and a non-Parsi father to embrace their mother’s faith. Parsi women married to non-Parsi men have on occasion been denied entry into fire temples and also have been denied burial according to Parsi rites. These practices (enforced only after immigration to India) may have been tolerated in an age that saw women as being of secondary importance, but are intolerable when equality of the sexes is a human and constitutional requirement. They are also seen as irrational in a community that needs more not less people.

Moreover, the lawmakers now have to take into account not just the opinion of the ‘Bombay’ or ‘Indian’ Parsis, but the large Parsi diaspora, which is keen to see this change since it will make it easier for them to remain within the faith though dwelling in a foreign country. Moreover, the small pocket of Iranian Zoroastrians who could arguably be said to be the original torchbearers of the faith, having practiced it in its original birthplace, have no such restrictions.

In recent years, a new element has been added to this identity mix. With the break up of the USSR and the emergence of regional nationalisms in the erstwhile republics, pockets of Zoroastrians have emerged in unlikely places such as Georgia and Tajikistan. And, though small in number, they are eager to be part of what might be termed a worldwide Zoroastrian identity.

The need to be inclusive instead of exclusive in order to stop the community from haemorrhaging is thus obvious to many within the community. To others, though, it means opening the floodgates and risking the dilution of a centuries-old identity. The point is whether you see that identity going back 12 centuries to the arrival of the Zoroastrians in India, or 30 to the beginning of the religion.