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Orthodox, heretic, moderate, liberal, priests, scholars, trustees, beneficiaries, laity; all have alleged time and again that the Parsi media has always been heavily biased. Activist, opinionated, prejudiced, argumentative. Never content with dispassionate reporting. Seldom an observer; often a crusader. Is this a case of Parsis being hypersensitive to criticism or are these allegations broadly correct? The wild colorful days of Parsi media, of course, are long over. Chilly hot reporting has been replaced by stale asparagus and crumpled broccoli. However, not so long ago, the Parsi media pulsated with hyper-excitement. There never was a dull moment.
It all started with the doyen of journalism, Mobed Furdoonjee Murzbanjee who founded Asia’s oldest continuously published newspaper, the Mumbai Samachar. Murzbanjee was a fierce Kadmi and an ordained priest in an era when Shahenshahis and Kadmis fought each other violently. Murder, arson, riots, hanging the innocent, fixed trials; no holds were barred. Murzbanjee started with genuinely noble intentions to be as dispassionate as possible, as recorded in his first ever editorial on July 1, 1822. However, it was impossible not to be caught in the crossfire of the raging controversies between the two bitterly opposed sects whose animosity reached its peak with the calendar controversy erupting in 1826-27 (see "Violence over a calendar,” Parsiana, February 7-20, 2022).

 

 

 

 

Samachar espoused the Kadmi cause and due to the preeminent position of this pioneering newspaper, Murzbanjee became a thorn in the flesh of the economically powerful Shahenshahis who threatened dire consequences if he did not stop attacking them or failed to give them equal coverage. Murzbanjee theatrically showed them a folded padaan (mouth guard worn by priests while praying) and said that even if his opponents ruined him financially, he could earn a livelihood as a priest. These threats resulted in Murzbanjee totally blocking out the other side from his paper.
The power and reach of the Samachar was immense and therefore his opponents decided Murzbanjee had to be silenced. The Shahenshahis were being roasted by the minority Kadmis. The Shahenshahis ultimately succeeded and Murzbanjee had to flee to Portuguese controlled Daman to evade imprisonment as an insolvent. He had to see his son stabbed by an irate Shahenshahi priest and died a broken man at 59.
Samachar was strictly speaking not a Parsi only publication. This void was filled by Jam-e-Jamshed. Founded by the same Murzbanjee family in 1832, first as a weekly and then as a daily from 1853, Jamé became as ubiquitous as the morning tea in Parsi households across Bombay; and in the 20th century its so called dak (upcountry) edition was delivered to South Gujarat households by noon.
Save for a brief period from 1948 to 1960 under Fram Balsara, a mercurial joint editor, the Jamé was a bastion of orthodoxy. In those days, socioreligious controversies abounded. The paper spewed fire and brimstone on issues like the Mazgaon navjotes (when the saintly priest Dastur Jamshed Kookadaru was instrumental in granting entry into the faith to children of Parsi dockworkers and their non-Parsi wives); the Vansda navjotes [when the Gandhian social reformer Burjorji Bharucha joined forces with renegade priest Dastur (Dr) Framroze Bode to similarly assimilate the progeny of Parsi farmers in Gujarat villages and their Hindu mistresses (see "Vansda revisited,” Parsiana, October 21-November 6, 2022)]. Jamé later successfully led a campaign not to have a Samast Anjuman condolence meeting to mourn Bharucha despite his national fame and widespread popularity.
In 1902, Jamé was unabashedly opposed to Ratan Tata’s efforts to bring his Parisian wife Suzanne Briere into the Zoroastrian fold. The newspaper extolled the orthodox judge Dinshaw Davar as a savior of the community for frustrating Tata’s attempt in the landmark case of Petit vs Jeejeebhoy. Jamé thus played a stellar role in shaping Parsi public opinion in favor of orthodoxy. The editorials were unapologetically orthodox and the paper shunned the reformists.
Balsara’s liberal instincts were not too well received by Jamé’s readers. Financial troubles multiplied at the paper. Nanabhoy Jeejeebhoy, from the blue blooded aristocracy, took over the Jamé. Jeejeebhoy unsuccessfully contested a Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) election against noted solicitor Shiavax Vakil and lost. While the legendary playwright and showman Adi Marzban remained Jamé’s editor on record, due to his family connections, the workhorse was a genial journalist named Keki Katki, as orthodox as they come. Balsara and his brief flirtation with liberal views were quickly forgotten.
Fifty years after the Jamé was founded, another anglo-Gujarati Parsi weekly, Kaiser-i-Hind (Emperor of India) emerged with a picture of Queen Victoria on its masthead. Framji Mehta, a relative of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, started the newspaper to voice a nationalist opinion; however, it also adopted a distinctly liberal approach to Parsi controversies. This trend became more pronounced when its ownership changed hands to Eruch Heerjibehedin, and later his sons, Soli and Jal. Kaiser thus became the antithesis of the orthodox Jamé.
Jal was a great fan of Bode, the bête noire of the fundamentalists. Kaiser supported Bharucha and other reformists. It adopted a distinctly strident tone against the trustees of the BPP. Fifty years ago, this columnist’s first ever letter on Parsi affairs, which bordered on defamation, was published by Jal without any change — much to the chagrin of the then BPP chairman Erach Nadirshah.
We recollect a stormy public meeting at the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute hall about conversion where Jal and Bode were pelted with tomatoes and eggs but stood their ground against the haandas (louts) trying to shout them down. Somewhat on the lines of the famous slanging matches between the pro-business Current of Dosu Karaka and the supposedly left wing Blitz of Rusi Karanjia; Jamé and Kaiser too abandoned all objectivity and were brazenly one-sided.
There was much infant mortality in several Parsi Gujarati publications of different hues in the 20th century. In 1902, an anglo-Gujarati newspaper, the Sanj Vartaman was launched and had a decent 48-year-old career. Several Parsi Gujarati journalists like Balsara as also Minoo Desai began their journalistic careers from the Sanj Vartaman.
Desai joined Samachar as a columnist on Parsi socioreligious affairs and began a column which he christened Parsi Tari Aarsi (Parsi thy mirror) or popularly PTA. Desai, who became the editor of the Samachar in 1961 and remained in that post until his sudden death in 1975, insisted that the column would appear in chaste Gujarati, despite the suggestions of the Camas who owned Samachar to make the feature bilingual in order to extend its reach. Under Desai, PTA, though middle of the road on religious issues, had its own strong biases and prejudices. It had empathy for Kaiser and was antagonistic to Jamé, which was dismissed as a country cousin. One reason was the close personal friendship between Desai and Jal, and distinctly frosty relations with Adi Marzban.          To be continued