The arrest of a hapless Parsi in Surat who allegedly forged a letter purporting to be from the Gujarat High Court addressed to the Surat Parsi Panchayat stating Covid afflicted corpses could be consigned to a dakhma (see "Bogus court order,” Events and Personalities, pg 11), stands testimony to people’s desperation to follow traditional rites. There are few words of comfort one can offer individuals and families that firmly believe the only way to cross the Chinvat Pul into the next world is by having their bodies consigned to the dakhmas — as and where that option is available. Traditionalists have forewarned that all other forms of disposal result in the soul hovering aimlessly in the universe.
Even though a conservative and respected high priest approved of a few token prayers for the Covid deceased being recited by mobeds at Doongerwadi while facing the dakhmas, this innocuous suggestion was spurned by the majority Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees. The Parsee Voice (PV) editors likened such prayers being recited without the body present as being "akin to conducting the ashirvad ceremony in Bombay of a Parsi couple sitting on their chairs in the USA (see ‘Paidusts in the pandemic,’ Editorial Viewpoint, Parsiana, July 7-20, 2020)!”
So it was expected that when a suggestion was made by Udvada High Priest Dastur Khurshed Dastoor to permit burial of Covid afflicted corpses at doongerwadis there would be a backlash from the traditionalists. In an email appropriately titled, "Desperate times call for desperate measures,” dated May 1, 2021 (see pg 18) which was also reprinted in the Parsi Times of the same date, Dastoor observed community "members are crying out in despair...There is palpable urgency to resolve this perplexing matter without compromising on our religious principles and sentiments.”
He pointed out that in Surat five Parsis succumbed to Covid in a single day. According to figures available with Parsiana, Bombay recorded 44 Covid deaths among Parsis in April alone (see "Death by Covid,” Events and Personalities, pg 8). (The number of non-Covid deaths consigned to Doongerwadi in the same month was 77). "This is not the time for intellectual debate. This is the time for action,” Dastoor emphasized. Religious issues, however, are seldom resolved by intellect. They are determined by emotions, beliefs, sentiments, prejudices and conditioning. The intellect, if used, is mainly to cite references from scriptures, legal documents and the law. Unfortunately all three sources are incorrectly or partly quoted and/or taken out of context.
"Between burning and burying what is a better option?” asked the priest. "What are Iranian Zarathushtis doing in Iran since the 1960s? They have burial. In Zoroastrian communities across India where there are no dakhmas the practice of ground burial has been considered and accepted as the next option.”
He also opined that a separate dakhma could have been used for Covid afflicted corpses but added, "Honestly, I think, this proposal may not be accepted” as permissions have to be obtained from multiple state and municipal agencies "resulting in a considerable loss of valuable time.” He advocated instead only a portion of the Doongerwadi lands be demarcated for burial.
The PV editorial, titled "Right sentiment but wrong approach,” harped on PV’s earlier failed option: "Petition the MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) to permit Covid infected bodies to be interred in our dakhmas.” As though the Bombay municipality does not have enough on its hands already with a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and vaccines! The sanguine editorial team noted that once the pallbearers are vaccinated and "the risks to them (are) also suitably reduced,” they could carry the corpses to a "separate currently unused dakhma.” A monetary incentive from donors would be offered to lure the pallbearers (to their premature deaths?). One wonders why the donors and the traditionalists cannot, as an act of faith, carry the Covid afflicted corpses themselves.
The editorial quotes the Vendidad on burials as directing Zoroaster to "guide the people to destroy all such tombs and dig up the graves.” PV then goes on to state "discussing cremation or burial as options is an exercise in futility.” But PV omits to state that the Vendidad mandates the body be devoured by scavengers and that nowhere does it refer, recommend or condone the option of dehydrating the body by the sun’s rays. The text also stipulates bodies cannot be consigned to the dakhmas when it is raining. The dead body should not contaminate water under any circumstances. Corpses would have to be stored during the monsoons in some giant morgue for the four or so months. Thus, citing the Vendidad to bolster their argument serves little purpose.
Similarly, claiming that the municipal rules and the trust deed specify that the Doongerwadi lands be used only for dakhmenashini alone is incorrect. Was not Godrej Baug built on Doongerwadi land? And is not Ambawadi, where non-Parsi BPP staff reside, also on Doongerwadi property? Were not Gibbs Road and Hughes Road constructed on BPP lands probably reserved for Doongerwadi? Was not permission given to the Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1960 to lay water pipes on Doongerwadi lands? Were not multi-storey buildings constructed for Parsis on Poona’s Doongerwadi lands? (We will be told Godrej Baug and the Poona lands were separate from Doongerwadi and so could be used. But they were meant to be buffer zones at best, if not part of Doongerwadi itself.) Have not vast measures of the Surat Parsi Panchayat lands been encroached upon as well as the pathway once reserved for Parsi corpses to be carried from Navsari town to the dakhma lands?
It is erroneous to state that the cy pres principle does not apply to religious trusts. As long as the property is being used for disposal of the dead, the objectives of the trust are being served. All over the world churches or other similar properties are converted for varied uses and even sold if not sufficiently availed of. At the behest of the trustees, and on assessing the situation, the courts of law can permit the land to be used for burial. In smaller towns, deaths take place once, maybe twice or thrice in a year but the dakhma lies underutilized. Residents prefer to consign corpses to a dakhma in a neighboring municipality which is in use and has the required personnel.
But when the majority BPP trustees will not even permit token prayers for Covid cremated corpses to be recited, what chance is there of moving the courts for any alternate system? Even if the burying of Parsi corpses is a prevalent practice all over India and the world, especially where Towers of Silence do not exist, the majority trustees will still fight shy of alienating their loyalists.
A WhatsApp message which bears the name Jamshed Sukhadwalla termed Dastoor’s proposal a "sellout” and went on to claim, "It’s a cruel game played on our community.”
But what could be crueler than denying grieving families and friends the recitation of even token prayers at Doongerwadi or a grave? Did not the Achemenid emperor write on his tomb: "Passerby, I am Cyrus, who gave the Persians an empire, and was King of Asia. Grudge me not therefore this monument.”
If we can bury kings, why not commoners?