04-07-2005, 01:13 AM
rajesh, thanks.
talking about parsis, i remember a story about a famous parsi - Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata empire.
he was going to the US to invest in business there. on his way , in the ship, he met a young saint. the two chatted and the saint asked jamsetji his purpose of going to the US. jamsetji told the saint that he was going to the US to invest in business. the saint advised jamsetji to go back to india and invest there. jamsetji stopped in a port midway and came back to india and started TATA Steel, the first steel company of india and first of the many TATA companies that became the TATA empire. the city of Jamshedpur is named after jamsetji Tata.
<b> the saint who persuaded him to go back to india was none other than Swami Vivekananda who was on his way to address the world religion congress at chicago.</b>
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...Id=4223182
has a photo essay and also a NPR audio report.
http://www.culturopedia.com/Religions/zo...anism.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->PARSIS OF INDIA
Parsi Reform Movement in India: Dababhai Naoroji, Naoroji Furdonji and others set up the Rehnumai Mazdayasan Sabha (Religious Reform Association) in 1851 to carry out campaigns against the strict orthodoxy in Zoroastrianism. They laid special emphasis on modernising the Parsis and raising the social status of women by providing for their education.
The first Zoroastrians to enter India arrived on the Gujarat coast in the 10th century and by the 17th century, most of them had settled in Bombay. Today, there are approximately 90,000 Parsis in India and are concentrated largely in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213617/posts
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Parsis in India are on brink of extinction
HT.com ^ | September 11, 2004 | HT.com
Posted on 09/11/2004 8:39:17 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI: Lt. Gen (Retd) A M Sethna, member, National Commission for Minorities, and president, Delhi Parsi Anjuman, is touching 80, and has an interesting story to tell about the Parsi identity crisis that dates back to the 1940s.
This was a time when the affable general was a cadet and it was mandatory to wear a badge with oneâs religion inscribed on it. âIt was part of the uniform.
For Christians, you had to even mention if you were Pros [Protestant] or RC [Roman Catholic],â Sethna remembers. âWhen I was asked what I was, I said âParsiâ, and the attending officer who was writing down my personal details said, âParsi? Never heard of it. Iâll put down RCâ.â
Which was strange, considering that the Parsis â Zoroastrians of Persian origin, who were dubbed âParsisâ in India because they hailed mostly from a region called Pars â had been around since the 10th century.
But that marginalisation is now down to a rather frightening numbers game: the 2001 Census reveals that Parsi community in India, collectively, stands at 69,601 heads (33949 males and 35652 females) â down from 76,382 in 1991.
Thereâs more bad news.
âThe 2001 Census is particularly significant, itâs been by far the most thorough Census, at least for the Parsis, because we have made it a point to include everyone,â says Sethna. The sub-text clearly is: chances are that there were probably many Parsis who didnât take part in the 1991 Census, but still the number was considerably higher. âThe 2001 figures are downright scary â if we donât do damage control rightaway, three generations down the line, we could well be extinct.â
Agrees former Tisco chairman, the 86-year-old Russi Mody: âThe number of Parsis are reducing every year, itâs a dying community.â
The two community elders are not exaggerating. According to the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, in 2003, the number of recorded Parsi births in the city was 2 while the number of deaths was 8. Worse, only 4.7 per cent Parsis fall in the 0-6 age bracket â compare that to the national average of 15.9.
Sooni Taraporevala, scriptwriter, photographer, writes in her book Zoroastrians of India: Parsis that, âBy the year 2020, India will have achieved the dubious distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1,200 million people. At that point, Parsis who will number 23,000 or 0.0002 per cent of the population, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a âtribeâ, as is any ethnic group below the 30,000 count. Demographically, we are a dying community â our deaths outweigh our births.â
Why have the Parsis become an endangered species?
Most community members Hindustan Times spoketo felt there are three reasons for this: late marriages, a high incidence of intermarriages that leads to loss of faith, and a self-imposed ban on conversions.
âParsi girl are usually well-educated and they are serious about pursuing a career, so by the time they are in a position to settle down theyâre in their late 20s or, at times, well past 30 and their biological clock is already ticking away,â says 45-year-old Kemran Mehta, who runs a religious/interactive club for children in the Parsi Dharamsala on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in Delhi. âMost times, they opt for a single kid, and many of them prefer not to go the family way.â
Inter-marriages should normally help a community grow, right? No so with the Parsis. For one, girls who marry outside their community are not considered Parsis by virtue of their new status. âItâs a patriarchial society, and when a Parsi girl marries a non-Parsi, her kids cannot be Parsis even if they want to,â
says M K Meherji, a 34-year-old event manager working in New Delhi. âIf a Parsi boy marries a non-Parsi, only then can their kids be allowed to do the Navjot [the baptism ceremony].â The wives, however, donât qualify to be Parsis.
A landmark judgement in 1902 [Davar vs Beamont] is considered to be a referral for intermarriages. The judgment laid down that non-Parsi spouses would have no legal standing in the Parsi fold. The sentence is still serving its term.
But thereâs hope yet. The Delhi Parsi Anjuman has broken out of that stranglehold, and is now permitting non-Parsi spouses to be part of the community affairs, although the Fire Temples and the Towers of Silence remain out of bounds. âThe problem is none of the other Anjumans all over the country are willing to be part of this change process,â says Sethna.
The issue of conversions is largely one of deemed superiority. One cannot adopt the Zoroastrian faith if you want to because the community forbids it.
Now hereâs the catch: this has nothing to do with the scriptures. As popular VJ Cyrus Broacha, says: âThe ban on conversions has to do with preserving the purity of the community but that was not what Zoroastrianism was all about when we came to India more than a thousand years ago.â
Television actress Tanaaz Currim, who is married to a Muslim, feels likewise: âWe can prevent the community from dying out by accepting children of mixed marriages.â
What is somewhat baffling is the straitjacket that the community has donned by choice: why are the Parsis, otherwise a progressive and visionary group of people, willingly being shackled by traditions? âItâs a conundrum,â shrugs Sethna, âone that cannot be explained rationally.â
Maybe itâs a matter of faith. But in this case, faith seems to be moving the community to extinction.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: INDIA; IRAN; PARSI; ZOROASTRIAN
Zoroastrianism (also sometimes known as Mazdaism) was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia between 1400 and 1200 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimate as late as 600 BC).
Overview Zoroastrianism combines elements of monotheism and dualism. Some modern scholars believe that Zoroastrianism had a large influence on Judaism and Manichaeism, and thus indirectly influenced Christianity and Islam.
The holy book of Zoroastrianism is the Avesta. Of the Avesta only the Gathas (the hymns) are attributed to Zoroaster.
Ahura Mazda (literally: "the Wise Lord" like the Sanskrit "Asura Medha"; later transcription: Ohrmazd, Ormazd or Ormus) is revered and worshipped by Zoroastrians as the good God. Opposed to Ahura Mazda stands Ahriman (Angra Mainyu), who in some traditions is Ohrmazd's twin brother, in others the twin of Spenta Mainyu; modern Zoroastrianism considers itself monotheistic and looks upon Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu as allegorical personifications.
According to Zoroastrianism, the earth was created by Ormazd as a battlefield to fight Ahriman (where Ohrmazd is destined to win approximately 3000 years after Zoroaster, that is, circa AD 2400). Human beings have free will to choose between Ohrmazd and Ahriman, however once this choice is made it is impossible or nearly impossible to change. Those who align with Ohrmazd are believed to go directly to Heaven after death or resurrection (depending on the tradition), whereas those who align with Ahriman go to Hell for a period of time before then going on to Heaven. Unlike Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism does not associate matter with evil. On the contrary, material pursuits such as raising a family and creating wealth are considered to aid Ohrmazd. "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" is a common slogan.
However, Zoroastrianism is not simply the purely ethical religion it may at first seem. Purification rituals are important. Indeed a religious Zoroastrian must constantly be involved in a meticulous struggle against the contamination of death (which is associated with Ahriman) and of the many other causes of defilement, and against the threat - even in sleep - of demons. Fire is an important religious symbol, and once started a ritual fire must be kept continually burning. The dead are not buried (so as to not defile the soil) or cremated (as fire is considered sacred), but left for vultures to devour in specially constructed Towers of Silence.
History By the 6th century, Zoroastrianism had spread to northern China via the Silk Road, gaining official status in a number of Chinese states. Zoroastrian temples still remained in Kaifeng and Zhenjiang as late as the 1130s, but by the 13th century the religion had faded from prominence in China.
In the 7th century, the Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty was conquered by Muslim Arabs, and Zoroastrians were awarded the status of People of the Book by the Caliph Omar, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited, such as sibling marriages. Before this took place, however, many thousand of Zoroastrian priests were executed, hundreds of temples destroyed, and religious texts burnt. Further, the use of the ancient Avestan as well as Persian languages was prohibited. Islamic invaders attempted to distort the teaching of Zardusht by presenting Zoroastrianism as polytheistic cult thus facilitating the annihilation of the Iranian culture and its peoples.
Arab invasion and the subsequent repression by Islamic authorities left the deepest scar in this ancient monotheistic faith that was once dominant in a region stretching from Anatolia to Persian Gulf and Central Asia. The Persecution of Zoroastrians by Muslim rulers of theocratic Iran continued after the Arabs left; even today, however, one can find Zoroastrian communities living and practicing their faith in remote regions of the country.
In the 8th century, Zoroastrians fled to India in large numbers, where they were given refuge by Jadi Rana, a Hindu king of Sanjan (the modern-day province of Gujarat) on condition that they abstain from missionary activities and marry only in their community. Although these strictures are centuries old, Parsis of the 21st century still do not accept converts and are endogamous. The Parsis of India speak a Gujarati dialect.
The earliest English references to Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian religion occur in the writings of the encyclopaedist Sir Thomas Browne.
It is widely believed that the Three Wise Men said to have borne gifts for Jesus of Nazareth were Zoroastrian Magi. The Achaemenid Persian Kings Xerxes and Darius had previously assisted the Jews in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem.
Adherents Small Zoroastrian communities survive in Iran and in India (where they are called Parsis or Parsees), totalling 140,000 followers. Iranian Zoroastrians are called Gabars (a name deriving from the Arabic word kaffir meaning infidel), but this is a pejorative term. Some Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman still speak an Iranian language distinct from Persian. They call their language Dari (not to be confused with the Dari of Afghanistan). Their language is also called Gabri or Behdinan. Sometimes their language is named for the cities in which they are spoken, Yazdi or Kermani. Other small Zoroastrian communities exist in large cities in the United States, England and Canada.
Famous Zoroastrians One of the most famous Zoroastrians is the late Freddie Mercury, the frontman of the group Queen. He was given a traditional Zoroastrian funeral after he died of AIDS on the 24th of November, 1991. Famous Indian Parsis include symphonic conductor Zubin Mehta, the Tata and Godrej industrial families<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.isteve.com/2002_Parsis_Success_...ns_Survival.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Last year, a Miami psychotherapist visited a Sydney database administrator's Web site for help in finding the girl of his dreams, who turned out to be a flight attendant based in the Persian Gulf.
Welcome to the dizzyingly cosmopolitan realm of Parsi matchmaking, where the Internet is helping one of the most culturally sophisticated ethnic groups keep alive one of the most ancient but endangered major religions.
In a world in which minorities are often violently persecuted, the collective survival of the Parsis and their Zoroastrian religion is threatened by a more paradoxical peril: lots of non-Parsis want to marry them.
The Parsis are India's remarkably well-educated and affluent followers of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (or "Zarathustra"). The Parsis are centered in Bombay, India, but are increasingly spread thinly throughout the world. Mahatma Gandhi said of them, "In numbers, Parsis are beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare." During British rule, when the Parsis became the commercial leaders of India, Parsi capitalists, such as the Tata dynasty, built much of India's heavy industry.
To explain their economic success in India and America, Rumi Engineer, the president of the Zoroastrian Association of Rocky Mountain, pointed to the Parsi tradition of intensive education. Houtoxi Contractor, head of the Zoroastrian Association of Pennsylvania, suggested to United Press International, "Parsis can't become complacent because they don't have a country of their own." She noted that her medical student daughter will soon represent the fifth straight generation of Contractors to be doctors.
(Just as many medieval Englishmen converted their occupations, such as smith and cooper, into surnames, some Parsis did the same during the British Raj. They often added the suffix "wala," which means "dealer or manufacturer." The most memorable Parsi name might be Mr. Sodabottleopenerwala)
By the way, "Parsi" is also commonly spelled "Parsee."
The Parsis originated more than 1,000 years ago when Persian Zoroastrians fled Arab-conquered Iran. They were allowed by the Hindu king of Gujarat to settle on the west coast of India. Over the millennium, Parsis began speaking their own dialect of Gujarati, in somewhat the same manner as European Jews turned German into Yiddish.
Strikingly, in over 1,000 years, the Hindus never violently harassed Parsis, though Hindu-Muslim civil strife is common in India. The Parsis remain grateful to the Hindus for refuge, just as many Jews greatly appreciate the security provided by America.
The number of Parsis has been dropping. In India, they are down from 115,000 in 1941 to perhaps 65,000 (out of 1 billion Indians) today. By 2021, they are expected to fall to a mere 21,000.
As with U.S. Jews, who are predicted by the American Jewish Committee to shrink by one-third over the next 80 years, intermarriage plays a role in the Parsis' worldwide numeric decline. (Other factors include small families and marriages postponed during the pursuit of advanced degrees). Something like 20 percent of Parsis marry outside the community, compared to as many as 52 percent of American Jews.
There are roughly 10,000 to 15,000 Parsis in North America, along with a somewhat smaller number of Zoroastrians from Iran. Like the long-separated European and Middle Eastern Jews who are slowly coming back in contact in Israel, in the diaspora the Indian Parsis and their Iranian brethren are perhaps beginning to merge again into one people, the Zarathushtis.
The Parsis face many of the same demographic problems as the Jews.
"Only we, unfortunately do not have the luxury of numbers that the Jews have," points out Roshan Rivetna, editor of the Journal of the Federation of Zoroastrian Organizations of North America (FEZANA.org). Because there are only about 1 percent as many Parsis as Jews on Earth, the survival pressure on them is more intense. Further, Parsis don't have their own country like Israel, where millions of Jews are geographically isolated from gentiles who might want to marry them.
The Parsi example raises a seldom-asked but important question: Can diversity survive tolerance? The fate of the Parsis will say much about whether Westernized religious-ethnic groups that encourage education and gender equality can maintain their ancient coherence as a people in a globalizing world.
Followers of Zoroastrianism, which arguably rivals Judaism as the oldest form of ethical monotheism, are turning to world-spanning modern technology in order to marry within their faith.
Parsis also compete with Jews for the title of best-educated diaspora group in the world. Shahrokh "Sam" Mehta, a prominent figure in the American Parsi community and a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta, estimates that 80 percent of Indian Parsis earn college degrees, and the figure may be even higher in America.
Unlike most immigrants, Parsis do not cluster in one particular location or occupation, but instead spread out to the wealthiest cities of the English-speaking world (virtually all Parsis speak English). They go wherever there are lucrative opportunities for doctors, engineers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and computer scientists. This dispersal can make finding a Parsi mate difficult.
Like many Parsi immigrants, Bombay-born psychotherapist Framroze Sarkari, 38, fairly quickly found an American non-Parsi spouse upon arriving on this continent.
For example, the best-known Parsi in the United States is California resident Zubin Mehta, who has been the musical director of the Philharmonic orchestras of Los Angeles, New York, and (currently) Israel. He is married to former Hollywood star Barbara Kovack. Previously, Mehta had been wed to another non-Parsi, classical singer Carmen Lasky. After their divorce, she married a second Parsi, Zarin Mehta. He is the executive director of the New York Philharmonic, and is Zubin's brother.
(The other world famous Parsi musical prodigy was the late Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen. He was born "Farrokh Balsara" in a Parsi community in Zanzibar, off the coast of Africa. Freddie, however, who died of AIDS in 1991, was not the marrying type.)
Back home in South Asia, members of the Hindu and Muslim ruling families sometimes fall in love with Parsis. The name of the most famous political dynasty in India, Gandhi, is derived not from Mahatma Gandhi, but from a Parsi named Feroze Gandhi, who married the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Feroze Gandhi's wife, Indira, became Prime Minister and their son, Rajiv, followed her to the top.
Similarly, Nehru's great enemy, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Muslim Pakistan, married a Parsi. When Jinnah's only child, his half-Parsi daughter, in turn married another Parsi, it broke his heart.
After Miami psychotherapist Sarkari's amicable divorce from his American first wife, he increasingly longed for a Zoroastrian bride. He believes that Zoroastrians -- whose lives are guided by the principle of "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" -- are particularly rational, fun-loving, and gentle. "One reason I'd hang out with Zoroastrians in Bombay is because the other cultures in India, they would always be talking about killing somebody," he recounted, only somewhat jokingly.
But Sarkari lives in the Miami area, where -- to the best of his knowledge -- there are only 92 Zoroastrians.
Worse, Sarkari was not sure if a Zoroastrian family would have him. He has always been much more enthusiastic about the Parsi people than many of them have been about him, due to his being only half-Parsi by birth. His mother is an Indian Catholic.
Although arranged marriages are common in South Asia, Parsis almost always make love matches. Still, when he was in his early 20s in Bombay, Sarkari's early romances with Parsi girls always ended badly. "'You're not a full Zoroastrian,' they would tell me. I would be criticized all the time. I especially wouldn't be offered marriages."
In mixed marriages, Zoroastrian husbands (such as Sarkari's father) can officially pass their religion on to their children, but Zoroastrian wives cannot. (This is the mirror image of the Orthodox Jewish rule that Jewishness is passed down through the mother, not the father.) In practice, though, some Zoroastrians don't accept either kind of offspring as genuine members of the community.
While American Zoroastrians tend to be more accepting of the children of mixed marriages than their relatives in Bombay, Zoroastrian religious educator R. Karanjia spoke for much of the community when he said, "Zoroastrianism is an ethnic religion. We believe that religion is decided by birth."
The Parsis' traditional hereditary exclusiveness served them well in India. Because they neither proselytized for their faith, nor even accepted converts, the Parsis were no threat to their vastly more numerous hosts. The Hindus found the typical Parsi refusal to intermarry not standoffish, but proper. After all, the caste system split Hindus into countless little communities that wouldn't intermarry with each other.
These barriers to intermarriage on both sides made multiculturalism in India possible over the long term. Without them, over the past thousand years, the Parsis would likely have disappeared into the vast Hindu population. Today, though, Parsis remain not just culturally but physically somewhat distinct from most Indians, often fairer-skinned and taller, like their Iranian ancestors.
As with Jews, Zoroastrian religious opinions range from orthodox to reform. There is much debate within the community today over whether to discourage intermarriage by excommunicating the offspring, or welcome them into the community. Rivetna, the Parsi-American editor, suggested a compromise. Intermarriage should be "discouraged very strongly. But if it happens, the spouse and children should be made very welcome in the fold."
This parallels a dispute within the American Jewish community. Elliott Abrams, a Jewish activist now at the National Security Council, made the case against mixed marriages in 1997: "Intermarriage is both inevitable in our open society, and immensely threatening to Jewish continuity here. ... Despite the hopes of many in the Jewish community, the effect of mixed marriages on children is evident. Only 28 percent are raised as Jews, and an even smaller percentage marry Jews. ... A three-generational study of Jews in Philadelphia found that no grandchildren of mixed marriages continued to identify as Jews."
Sarkari had become resigned to marrying outside Zoroastrianism. Then his Parsi sister-in-law started sending him the URL for Zoroastrianism.com, which hosts a Zoroastrian Matrimonial Page run by Porus Havewala.
Sarkari thought, "Oh come on, no Parsi is gonna marry me." He e-mailed back to her bemusedly, "Forget about arranged marriages, now you are talking about Internet arranged marriages?'"
Havewala, a computer administrator in Australia, has helped introduced over 50 Zoroastrians couples who have gone on to marriage. He founded his Web site because, "Intermarriage was growing in our community in the 1980s and onwards. The frequent reason given was, 'I couldn't find a suitable Zoroastrian match.' Our parents and grandparents consider intermarriage to be a sin and a destroyer of the community, so the rising level of intermarriage pained me deeply."
On Feb. 11, 2001, Sarkari visited Havewala's Web site for the first time. Within 15 minutes, he was e-mailing back and forth with Parivaz Roshni, a stewardess with Gulf Air. "She didn't care that I was only half Parsi, she was only interested in finding out about the real me. Feb. 11 -- that's the most wonderful memory I've ever had."
Six weeks later, Sarkari flew to Bahrain and proposed. He then made a one-day trip to Bombay to meet his new fiancée's parents, who are Zoroastrians who immigrated to India from Iran when they were children. "A wonderful family, very warm, very understanding, the real Zoroastrians you always longed for," remembers Sarkari.
They will marry in a civil ceremony in Miami in July. The big Zoroastrian wedding, however, will be in Bombay in January.
The psychotherapist summed up his complex feelings, "For me it's so sacred. As a Zoroastrian human being, it means a lot to me to be marrying a Zoroastrian. I always wanted to belong. It's very nurturing to be among Zoroastrians. After all these years, finally it's like a miracle for me. I finally end up being among the Parsis. The acceptance now completes the cycle and makes me feel like I don't have to worry ever."
"I have talked to my fiancé Parivaz about this and she laughs and laughs."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
talking about parsis, i remember a story about a famous parsi - Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata empire.
he was going to the US to invest in business there. on his way , in the ship, he met a young saint. the two chatted and the saint asked jamsetji his purpose of going to the US. jamsetji told the saint that he was going to the US to invest in business. the saint advised jamsetji to go back to india and invest there. jamsetji stopped in a port midway and came back to india and started TATA Steel, the first steel company of india and first of the many TATA companies that became the TATA empire. the city of Jamshedpur is named after jamsetji Tata.
<b> the saint who persuaded him to go back to india was none other than Swami Vivekananda who was on his way to address the world religion congress at chicago.</b>
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...Id=4223182
has a photo essay and also a NPR audio report.
http://www.culturopedia.com/Religions/zo...anism.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->PARSIS OF INDIA
Parsi Reform Movement in India: Dababhai Naoroji, Naoroji Furdonji and others set up the Rehnumai Mazdayasan Sabha (Religious Reform Association) in 1851 to carry out campaigns against the strict orthodoxy in Zoroastrianism. They laid special emphasis on modernising the Parsis and raising the social status of women by providing for their education.
The first Zoroastrians to enter India arrived on the Gujarat coast in the 10th century and by the 17th century, most of them had settled in Bombay. Today, there are approximately 90,000 Parsis in India and are concentrated largely in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213617/posts
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Parsis in India are on brink of extinction
HT.com ^ | September 11, 2004 | HT.com
Posted on 09/11/2004 8:39:17 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI: Lt. Gen (Retd) A M Sethna, member, National Commission for Minorities, and president, Delhi Parsi Anjuman, is touching 80, and has an interesting story to tell about the Parsi identity crisis that dates back to the 1940s.
This was a time when the affable general was a cadet and it was mandatory to wear a badge with oneâs religion inscribed on it. âIt was part of the uniform.
For Christians, you had to even mention if you were Pros [Protestant] or RC [Roman Catholic],â Sethna remembers. âWhen I was asked what I was, I said âParsiâ, and the attending officer who was writing down my personal details said, âParsi? Never heard of it. Iâll put down RCâ.â
Which was strange, considering that the Parsis â Zoroastrians of Persian origin, who were dubbed âParsisâ in India because they hailed mostly from a region called Pars â had been around since the 10th century.
But that marginalisation is now down to a rather frightening numbers game: the 2001 Census reveals that Parsi community in India, collectively, stands at 69,601 heads (33949 males and 35652 females) â down from 76,382 in 1991.
Thereâs more bad news.
âThe 2001 Census is particularly significant, itâs been by far the most thorough Census, at least for the Parsis, because we have made it a point to include everyone,â says Sethna. The sub-text clearly is: chances are that there were probably many Parsis who didnât take part in the 1991 Census, but still the number was considerably higher. âThe 2001 figures are downright scary â if we donât do damage control rightaway, three generations down the line, we could well be extinct.â
Agrees former Tisco chairman, the 86-year-old Russi Mody: âThe number of Parsis are reducing every year, itâs a dying community.â
The two community elders are not exaggerating. According to the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, in 2003, the number of recorded Parsi births in the city was 2 while the number of deaths was 8. Worse, only 4.7 per cent Parsis fall in the 0-6 age bracket â compare that to the national average of 15.9.
Sooni Taraporevala, scriptwriter, photographer, writes in her book Zoroastrians of India: Parsis that, âBy the year 2020, India will have achieved the dubious distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1,200 million people. At that point, Parsis who will number 23,000 or 0.0002 per cent of the population, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a âtribeâ, as is any ethnic group below the 30,000 count. Demographically, we are a dying community â our deaths outweigh our births.â
Why have the Parsis become an endangered species?
Most community members Hindustan Times spoketo felt there are three reasons for this: late marriages, a high incidence of intermarriages that leads to loss of faith, and a self-imposed ban on conversions.
âParsi girl are usually well-educated and they are serious about pursuing a career, so by the time they are in a position to settle down theyâre in their late 20s or, at times, well past 30 and their biological clock is already ticking away,â says 45-year-old Kemran Mehta, who runs a religious/interactive club for children in the Parsi Dharamsala on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in Delhi. âMost times, they opt for a single kid, and many of them prefer not to go the family way.â
Inter-marriages should normally help a community grow, right? No so with the Parsis. For one, girls who marry outside their community are not considered Parsis by virtue of their new status. âItâs a patriarchial society, and when a Parsi girl marries a non-Parsi, her kids cannot be Parsis even if they want to,â
says M K Meherji, a 34-year-old event manager working in New Delhi. âIf a Parsi boy marries a non-Parsi, only then can their kids be allowed to do the Navjot [the baptism ceremony].â The wives, however, donât qualify to be Parsis.
A landmark judgement in 1902 [Davar vs Beamont] is considered to be a referral for intermarriages. The judgment laid down that non-Parsi spouses would have no legal standing in the Parsi fold. The sentence is still serving its term.
But thereâs hope yet. The Delhi Parsi Anjuman has broken out of that stranglehold, and is now permitting non-Parsi spouses to be part of the community affairs, although the Fire Temples and the Towers of Silence remain out of bounds. âThe problem is none of the other Anjumans all over the country are willing to be part of this change process,â says Sethna.
The issue of conversions is largely one of deemed superiority. One cannot adopt the Zoroastrian faith if you want to because the community forbids it.
Now hereâs the catch: this has nothing to do with the scriptures. As popular VJ Cyrus Broacha, says: âThe ban on conversions has to do with preserving the purity of the community but that was not what Zoroastrianism was all about when we came to India more than a thousand years ago.â
Television actress Tanaaz Currim, who is married to a Muslim, feels likewise: âWe can prevent the community from dying out by accepting children of mixed marriages.â
What is somewhat baffling is the straitjacket that the community has donned by choice: why are the Parsis, otherwise a progressive and visionary group of people, willingly being shackled by traditions? âItâs a conundrum,â shrugs Sethna, âone that cannot be explained rationally.â
Maybe itâs a matter of faith. But in this case, faith seems to be moving the community to extinction.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: INDIA; IRAN; PARSI; ZOROASTRIAN
Zoroastrianism (also sometimes known as Mazdaism) was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia between 1400 and 1200 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimate as late as 600 BC).
Overview Zoroastrianism combines elements of monotheism and dualism. Some modern scholars believe that Zoroastrianism had a large influence on Judaism and Manichaeism, and thus indirectly influenced Christianity and Islam.
The holy book of Zoroastrianism is the Avesta. Of the Avesta only the Gathas (the hymns) are attributed to Zoroaster.
Ahura Mazda (literally: "the Wise Lord" like the Sanskrit "Asura Medha"; later transcription: Ohrmazd, Ormazd or Ormus) is revered and worshipped by Zoroastrians as the good God. Opposed to Ahura Mazda stands Ahriman (Angra Mainyu), who in some traditions is Ohrmazd's twin brother, in others the twin of Spenta Mainyu; modern Zoroastrianism considers itself monotheistic and looks upon Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu as allegorical personifications.
According to Zoroastrianism, the earth was created by Ormazd as a battlefield to fight Ahriman (where Ohrmazd is destined to win approximately 3000 years after Zoroaster, that is, circa AD 2400). Human beings have free will to choose between Ohrmazd and Ahriman, however once this choice is made it is impossible or nearly impossible to change. Those who align with Ohrmazd are believed to go directly to Heaven after death or resurrection (depending on the tradition), whereas those who align with Ahriman go to Hell for a period of time before then going on to Heaven. Unlike Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism does not associate matter with evil. On the contrary, material pursuits such as raising a family and creating wealth are considered to aid Ohrmazd. "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" is a common slogan.
However, Zoroastrianism is not simply the purely ethical religion it may at first seem. Purification rituals are important. Indeed a religious Zoroastrian must constantly be involved in a meticulous struggle against the contamination of death (which is associated with Ahriman) and of the many other causes of defilement, and against the threat - even in sleep - of demons. Fire is an important religious symbol, and once started a ritual fire must be kept continually burning. The dead are not buried (so as to not defile the soil) or cremated (as fire is considered sacred), but left for vultures to devour in specially constructed Towers of Silence.
History By the 6th century, Zoroastrianism had spread to northern China via the Silk Road, gaining official status in a number of Chinese states. Zoroastrian temples still remained in Kaifeng and Zhenjiang as late as the 1130s, but by the 13th century the religion had faded from prominence in China.
In the 7th century, the Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty was conquered by Muslim Arabs, and Zoroastrians were awarded the status of People of the Book by the Caliph Omar, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited, such as sibling marriages. Before this took place, however, many thousand of Zoroastrian priests were executed, hundreds of temples destroyed, and religious texts burnt. Further, the use of the ancient Avestan as well as Persian languages was prohibited. Islamic invaders attempted to distort the teaching of Zardusht by presenting Zoroastrianism as polytheistic cult thus facilitating the annihilation of the Iranian culture and its peoples.
Arab invasion and the subsequent repression by Islamic authorities left the deepest scar in this ancient monotheistic faith that was once dominant in a region stretching from Anatolia to Persian Gulf and Central Asia. The Persecution of Zoroastrians by Muslim rulers of theocratic Iran continued after the Arabs left; even today, however, one can find Zoroastrian communities living and practicing their faith in remote regions of the country.
In the 8th century, Zoroastrians fled to India in large numbers, where they were given refuge by Jadi Rana, a Hindu king of Sanjan (the modern-day province of Gujarat) on condition that they abstain from missionary activities and marry only in their community. Although these strictures are centuries old, Parsis of the 21st century still do not accept converts and are endogamous. The Parsis of India speak a Gujarati dialect.
The earliest English references to Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian religion occur in the writings of the encyclopaedist Sir Thomas Browne.
It is widely believed that the Three Wise Men said to have borne gifts for Jesus of Nazareth were Zoroastrian Magi. The Achaemenid Persian Kings Xerxes and Darius had previously assisted the Jews in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem.
Adherents Small Zoroastrian communities survive in Iran and in India (where they are called Parsis or Parsees), totalling 140,000 followers. Iranian Zoroastrians are called Gabars (a name deriving from the Arabic word kaffir meaning infidel), but this is a pejorative term. Some Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman still speak an Iranian language distinct from Persian. They call their language Dari (not to be confused with the Dari of Afghanistan). Their language is also called Gabri or Behdinan. Sometimes their language is named for the cities in which they are spoken, Yazdi or Kermani. Other small Zoroastrian communities exist in large cities in the United States, England and Canada.
Famous Zoroastrians One of the most famous Zoroastrians is the late Freddie Mercury, the frontman of the group Queen. He was given a traditional Zoroastrian funeral after he died of AIDS on the 24th of November, 1991. Famous Indian Parsis include symphonic conductor Zubin Mehta, the Tata and Godrej industrial families<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.isteve.com/2002_Parsis_Success_...ns_Survival.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Last year, a Miami psychotherapist visited a Sydney database administrator's Web site for help in finding the girl of his dreams, who turned out to be a flight attendant based in the Persian Gulf.
Welcome to the dizzyingly cosmopolitan realm of Parsi matchmaking, where the Internet is helping one of the most culturally sophisticated ethnic groups keep alive one of the most ancient but endangered major religions.
In a world in which minorities are often violently persecuted, the collective survival of the Parsis and their Zoroastrian religion is threatened by a more paradoxical peril: lots of non-Parsis want to marry them.
The Parsis are India's remarkably well-educated and affluent followers of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (or "Zarathustra"). The Parsis are centered in Bombay, India, but are increasingly spread thinly throughout the world. Mahatma Gandhi said of them, "In numbers, Parsis are beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare." During British rule, when the Parsis became the commercial leaders of India, Parsi capitalists, such as the Tata dynasty, built much of India's heavy industry.
To explain their economic success in India and America, Rumi Engineer, the president of the Zoroastrian Association of Rocky Mountain, pointed to the Parsi tradition of intensive education. Houtoxi Contractor, head of the Zoroastrian Association of Pennsylvania, suggested to United Press International, "Parsis can't become complacent because they don't have a country of their own." She noted that her medical student daughter will soon represent the fifth straight generation of Contractors to be doctors.
(Just as many medieval Englishmen converted their occupations, such as smith and cooper, into surnames, some Parsis did the same during the British Raj. They often added the suffix "wala," which means "dealer or manufacturer." The most memorable Parsi name might be Mr. Sodabottleopenerwala)
By the way, "Parsi" is also commonly spelled "Parsee."
The Parsis originated more than 1,000 years ago when Persian Zoroastrians fled Arab-conquered Iran. They were allowed by the Hindu king of Gujarat to settle on the west coast of India. Over the millennium, Parsis began speaking their own dialect of Gujarati, in somewhat the same manner as European Jews turned German into Yiddish.
Strikingly, in over 1,000 years, the Hindus never violently harassed Parsis, though Hindu-Muslim civil strife is common in India. The Parsis remain grateful to the Hindus for refuge, just as many Jews greatly appreciate the security provided by America.
The number of Parsis has been dropping. In India, they are down from 115,000 in 1941 to perhaps 65,000 (out of 1 billion Indians) today. By 2021, they are expected to fall to a mere 21,000.
As with U.S. Jews, who are predicted by the American Jewish Committee to shrink by one-third over the next 80 years, intermarriage plays a role in the Parsis' worldwide numeric decline. (Other factors include small families and marriages postponed during the pursuit of advanced degrees). Something like 20 percent of Parsis marry outside the community, compared to as many as 52 percent of American Jews.
There are roughly 10,000 to 15,000 Parsis in North America, along with a somewhat smaller number of Zoroastrians from Iran. Like the long-separated European and Middle Eastern Jews who are slowly coming back in contact in Israel, in the diaspora the Indian Parsis and their Iranian brethren are perhaps beginning to merge again into one people, the Zarathushtis.
The Parsis face many of the same demographic problems as the Jews.
"Only we, unfortunately do not have the luxury of numbers that the Jews have," points out Roshan Rivetna, editor of the Journal of the Federation of Zoroastrian Organizations of North America (FEZANA.org). Because there are only about 1 percent as many Parsis as Jews on Earth, the survival pressure on them is more intense. Further, Parsis don't have their own country like Israel, where millions of Jews are geographically isolated from gentiles who might want to marry them.
The Parsi example raises a seldom-asked but important question: Can diversity survive tolerance? The fate of the Parsis will say much about whether Westernized religious-ethnic groups that encourage education and gender equality can maintain their ancient coherence as a people in a globalizing world.
Followers of Zoroastrianism, which arguably rivals Judaism as the oldest form of ethical monotheism, are turning to world-spanning modern technology in order to marry within their faith.
Parsis also compete with Jews for the title of best-educated diaspora group in the world. Shahrokh "Sam" Mehta, a prominent figure in the American Parsi community and a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta, estimates that 80 percent of Indian Parsis earn college degrees, and the figure may be even higher in America.
Unlike most immigrants, Parsis do not cluster in one particular location or occupation, but instead spread out to the wealthiest cities of the English-speaking world (virtually all Parsis speak English). They go wherever there are lucrative opportunities for doctors, engineers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and computer scientists. This dispersal can make finding a Parsi mate difficult.
Like many Parsi immigrants, Bombay-born psychotherapist Framroze Sarkari, 38, fairly quickly found an American non-Parsi spouse upon arriving on this continent.
For example, the best-known Parsi in the United States is California resident Zubin Mehta, who has been the musical director of the Philharmonic orchestras of Los Angeles, New York, and (currently) Israel. He is married to former Hollywood star Barbara Kovack. Previously, Mehta had been wed to another non-Parsi, classical singer Carmen Lasky. After their divorce, she married a second Parsi, Zarin Mehta. He is the executive director of the New York Philharmonic, and is Zubin's brother.
(The other world famous Parsi musical prodigy was the late Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen. He was born "Farrokh Balsara" in a Parsi community in Zanzibar, off the coast of Africa. Freddie, however, who died of AIDS in 1991, was not the marrying type.)
Back home in South Asia, members of the Hindu and Muslim ruling families sometimes fall in love with Parsis. The name of the most famous political dynasty in India, Gandhi, is derived not from Mahatma Gandhi, but from a Parsi named Feroze Gandhi, who married the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Feroze Gandhi's wife, Indira, became Prime Minister and their son, Rajiv, followed her to the top.
Similarly, Nehru's great enemy, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Muslim Pakistan, married a Parsi. When Jinnah's only child, his half-Parsi daughter, in turn married another Parsi, it broke his heart.
After Miami psychotherapist Sarkari's amicable divorce from his American first wife, he increasingly longed for a Zoroastrian bride. He believes that Zoroastrians -- whose lives are guided by the principle of "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" -- are particularly rational, fun-loving, and gentle. "One reason I'd hang out with Zoroastrians in Bombay is because the other cultures in India, they would always be talking about killing somebody," he recounted, only somewhat jokingly.
But Sarkari lives in the Miami area, where -- to the best of his knowledge -- there are only 92 Zoroastrians.
Worse, Sarkari was not sure if a Zoroastrian family would have him. He has always been much more enthusiastic about the Parsi people than many of them have been about him, due to his being only half-Parsi by birth. His mother is an Indian Catholic.
Although arranged marriages are common in South Asia, Parsis almost always make love matches. Still, when he was in his early 20s in Bombay, Sarkari's early romances with Parsi girls always ended badly. "'You're not a full Zoroastrian,' they would tell me. I would be criticized all the time. I especially wouldn't be offered marriages."
In mixed marriages, Zoroastrian husbands (such as Sarkari's father) can officially pass their religion on to their children, but Zoroastrian wives cannot. (This is the mirror image of the Orthodox Jewish rule that Jewishness is passed down through the mother, not the father.) In practice, though, some Zoroastrians don't accept either kind of offspring as genuine members of the community.
While American Zoroastrians tend to be more accepting of the children of mixed marriages than their relatives in Bombay, Zoroastrian religious educator R. Karanjia spoke for much of the community when he said, "Zoroastrianism is an ethnic religion. We believe that religion is decided by birth."
The Parsis' traditional hereditary exclusiveness served them well in India. Because they neither proselytized for their faith, nor even accepted converts, the Parsis were no threat to their vastly more numerous hosts. The Hindus found the typical Parsi refusal to intermarry not standoffish, but proper. After all, the caste system split Hindus into countless little communities that wouldn't intermarry with each other.
These barriers to intermarriage on both sides made multiculturalism in India possible over the long term. Without them, over the past thousand years, the Parsis would likely have disappeared into the vast Hindu population. Today, though, Parsis remain not just culturally but physically somewhat distinct from most Indians, often fairer-skinned and taller, like their Iranian ancestors.
As with Jews, Zoroastrian religious opinions range from orthodox to reform. There is much debate within the community today over whether to discourage intermarriage by excommunicating the offspring, or welcome them into the community. Rivetna, the Parsi-American editor, suggested a compromise. Intermarriage should be "discouraged very strongly. But if it happens, the spouse and children should be made very welcome in the fold."
This parallels a dispute within the American Jewish community. Elliott Abrams, a Jewish activist now at the National Security Council, made the case against mixed marriages in 1997: "Intermarriage is both inevitable in our open society, and immensely threatening to Jewish continuity here. ... Despite the hopes of many in the Jewish community, the effect of mixed marriages on children is evident. Only 28 percent are raised as Jews, and an even smaller percentage marry Jews. ... A three-generational study of Jews in Philadelphia found that no grandchildren of mixed marriages continued to identify as Jews."
Sarkari had become resigned to marrying outside Zoroastrianism. Then his Parsi sister-in-law started sending him the URL for Zoroastrianism.com, which hosts a Zoroastrian Matrimonial Page run by Porus Havewala.
Sarkari thought, "Oh come on, no Parsi is gonna marry me." He e-mailed back to her bemusedly, "Forget about arranged marriages, now you are talking about Internet arranged marriages?'"
Havewala, a computer administrator in Australia, has helped introduced over 50 Zoroastrians couples who have gone on to marriage. He founded his Web site because, "Intermarriage was growing in our community in the 1980s and onwards. The frequent reason given was, 'I couldn't find a suitable Zoroastrian match.' Our parents and grandparents consider intermarriage to be a sin and a destroyer of the community, so the rising level of intermarriage pained me deeply."
On Feb. 11, 2001, Sarkari visited Havewala's Web site for the first time. Within 15 minutes, he was e-mailing back and forth with Parivaz Roshni, a stewardess with Gulf Air. "She didn't care that I was only half Parsi, she was only interested in finding out about the real me. Feb. 11 -- that's the most wonderful memory I've ever had."
Six weeks later, Sarkari flew to Bahrain and proposed. He then made a one-day trip to Bombay to meet his new fiancée's parents, who are Zoroastrians who immigrated to India from Iran when they were children. "A wonderful family, very warm, very understanding, the real Zoroastrians you always longed for," remembers Sarkari.
They will marry in a civil ceremony in Miami in July. The big Zoroastrian wedding, however, will be in Bombay in January.
The psychotherapist summed up his complex feelings, "For me it's so sacred. As a Zoroastrian human being, it means a lot to me to be marrying a Zoroastrian. I always wanted to belong. It's very nurturing to be among Zoroastrians. After all these years, finally it's like a miracle for me. I finally end up being among the Parsis. The acceptance now completes the cycle and makes me feel like I don't have to worry ever."
"I have talked to my fiancé Parivaz about this and she laughs and laughs."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->