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Decades ago, Parsi public meetings were often stormy and boisterous. "Bau khursi oochri (plenty of chairs were tossed about)” was a common observance. The fights were either between the orthodox and the reformists or between strong opposing personalities. Those were the days of political incorrectness. Name calling was rampant and haandas (boorish louts) roamed the streets. Decades ago, we say?
 Eminent jurist, late Homi Seervai, a man of saintly integrity and true nobility used to recount the story of his colleague, a senior partner of a venerable law firm, and later, chairman of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) who was aghast to read in the Jam-e-Jamshed a tribute published by his opponent in Parsi politics, who christened his dog with the lawyer’s initials The article was titled: "Maro vafaadar kutro, __; Ooth kéhvoon tau oothé, né bès kéhvoon tau bèsé (my faithful dog, stands if I command him to stand, and sits if I command him to sit).” The lawyer was dissuaded by the sagacious Seervai from suing the party for defamation, since he apparently had the right to name his dog. Perhaps, the dog could have sued.

 

 

 

 

 

The Kaiser-e-Hind (with Queen Victoria on its masthead, even much after Independence) espoused the liberal cause and was more acerbic than the then orthodox supporting Jamé. Adversaries in Parsi politics would routinely trade insults in the columns of these newspapers, avidly read by the community. We distinctly recollect a public meeting at the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, where the radically reformist Dastur Framroze Bode (who performed the Vansda navjotes) along with Kaiser’s editor, Jal Heerjibehdin, pleading with the crowd to stop pelting them with eggs (those days, we had mostly desi, and not ‘English,’ eggs) and Quink ink bottles. The crowd apparently did not believe in freedom of speech and after a few chairs were broken, the learned speakers escaped through the backdoor and the gathering dispersed.
It was an accepted practice to heckle speakers, manhandle opponents, hurl rotten tomatoes, publish scurrilous advertisements and use language which would make a goonda (hooligan) blush. Speaking of goondas, a report in the Saanj Vartamaan (a defunct Gujarati eveninger), describing a Parsi public meeting which was raucous, was headlined : "Parsi kom ma goondagirié, fari ék vaar oonchkéloo mathoo (Goondagiri surfaces once again in the community).” It went on to say how some prominent Parsi goondas (names mentioned) had disturbed the meeting and torn the dugla of the wretched speaker. Saanj Vartamaan was promptly issued a legal notice by the prominent goondas who said that they were defamed, as the Bombay Goonda Act (a legislation which still exists on the statute book) applied only to hardened criminals. Unchastised, the eveninger penned an editorial terming their leader as a "jaaro, kaaro Parsi goondo (a fat, black Parsi goonda).” Such fun and games were prolific.
After the days of the legendary Lt Col Rustam Kharegat, Lady Hirabai Jehangir was perhaps the last of the aristocratic trustees. With the arrival of Boman K. Boman-Behram (former Mayor of Bombay), Parsi politics acquired a new flavor. The story of his rise and fall will require two columns. At some point, he joined hands with the fundamentalist Dr Nelie Noble (one more column) and together, they controlled the Anjuman Committee, the cabal which elected BPP trustees. Noble’s brothers owned a cycle shop and they were tough, in a very Parsi sort of way. Their reign ended rather unceremoniously with the rise of the Committee for Electoral Rights (CER). The Nobles could have easily terrorized the urbane, very thin cucumber sandwich eating CERians, but for Dinshaw Mehta with his wide experience in making his father Rusi win successive Bombay municipal elections, for nearly 30 years, from the tough red-light district and drubbing the then aggressive Muslim League. Parsi politics suddenly became serious.
On the first day of the 1981 elections which gave CER a bone crushing victory over Boman-Behram and Noble, a Committee of  United Zoroastrians (CUZ, a group opposing CER) supporter tore down a poster. He was a giant of a man who thought the CER was full of sissies. The late Zal Contractor, compassionate and helpful to all, and a genial man, delivered a knock out blow to the CUZ giant who fell on the ground unconscious.
A decade earlier, reputed solicitor Shiavax Vakil defeated Nanabhoy Jeejeebhoy in a closely fought election (half a salacious column). Vakil entered the dakhmas, with co-trustee Dr Aspi Golwalla, to examine the state of affairs, and earned the ire of the fundamentalists. They threatened to throw acid on Vakil. Brave though he was, Vakil was fed up with Parsi politics and resigned within two years. In the 2011 universal adult franchise elections, there was an interesting skirmish between Jimmy Mistry’s bodyguards and Mehta’s family, at Rustom Baug.
Haandagiri and methipaak (clobbering) have thus a long history. It is wrong, therefore, to say that the BPP trustees have reached "a new low,” when the chairman tried to rearrange the furniture in the board room (practitioners of Vaastu, feng shui are convinced that this building is jinxed, and it is better for the community, if its landlord, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy VIII is successful in the eviction suit filed by him against the BPP). Quite a few non-Parsis were amused at this episode, though a little disappointed with the trustees, at the Anglicized abuse used by them instead of the authentic Parsi gaars (obscenities).
We have heard from the grapevine that in the BPP boardroom, all chairs have now been fixed to the ground, tea will be served in paper cups with plastic cutlery, and no pencil or pen will be permitted (anyway, there is nothing much to record). Four police constables will be stationed throughout the meeting and all entering the hallowed room will be frisked. It is certainly not a new low, it is, on the contrary, a new high. All those lamenting the demise of  Parsi theater will now take hope that a bumper season of fun and frolic awaits the community in the September 2015 trusteeship elections. Gentlemen, please don’t disappoint us.