Some call them ultraorthodox. Some dub them as fruitcakes. Some say they are the lunatic fringe of the community. They like to call themselves the vigilantes. So be it. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary vigilantes are defined as a group of volunteers who decide on their own to stop crime and to punish criminals. The Parsi vigilantes will wholeheartedly agree with this definition. Crimes are being committed against our religion and they wish to punish those deen dushmans (enemies of the faith).
Those whom they perceive to be the enemies, they attack viciously. Whether they are ultraliberals (those who advocate outright conversion and want to throw open the doors of Zoroastrian places of worship), or moderate reformists (those wanting gender equality in religious community trusts/institutions and prayers at the Towers of Silence for the cremated) or even the mainstream orthodox (for being spineless, insipid, half-hearted conservatives).
Their core world view has been constant and sacrosanct. We are Jupiterian souls (berjisi jiram) greatly privileged to be born as Zoroastrians. To abuse this privilege by marrying outside the faith, adopting non-Parsi children, cremating our dead or worshipping other gods is deemed a cardinal sin. Boond ni jalavani né tokham ni paasbaani (literally, preserving our special spermatozoa and unique genetic framework) is the uncompromising principle. The vigilantes say they are aghast at the horrors these deviants will have to undergo in the afterlife. Prior to eternal damnation or similar celestial punishment being inflicted, the vigilantes will, of course, name and shame those misguided ones.
Illustration by Farzana Cooper
A few years ago the irrepressible Dame (Dr) Meher Master-Moos of Mazdayasnie Monasterie fame tried to induct a Russian called Mikhail Chistyakov into the Zoroastrian priesthood. The Russian’s pre navar nahn was violently disrupted by a crowd led by the then Bombay Parsi Punchayet chairman Dinshaw Mehta. They proceeded to tear Chistyakov’s sudreh and unsuccessfully tried to do the same with his lengha (ostensibly to find out if he was circumcised). After manhandling the Russian and Master-Moos, the crowd managed to reach the Sanjan police station before Master-Moos to register a first information report against her for malicious attempt to outrage religious feelings of the community. Mehta and company claimed to be vigilantes. At the end of the day, it was plain haadagiri (hooliganism). While the authentic vigilantes were shocked with what Master-Moos was doing, they nonetheless distanced themselves from physical violence. The vigilantes are therefore not haadas (louts).
The list of crimes committed by infidels also includes: walking barefoot or bareheaded; donating blood or kidneys; restoring fire temples or laying thick carpets or using electricity therein; not praying before and after mastication, urination and defecation, (but surprisingly quiet about fornication); permitting non Zoroastrians to participate in religious ceremonies; not donning the sudreh and kusti 24/7; and a laundry list of exotic gunahs (sins) requiring recitation of numerous Patets (prayer of confession, repentance and self-abnegation). They view 99% of Parsis as sinners and believe in an exclusive Zoroastrian heaven for those who manage to cross a flyover called Chinavat; it is not clear whether an exclusive Zoroastrian hell also exists for the heretic scum. After reading thus far, if you have a bemused expression on your face, your chances of crossing the Chinavat Pul are near zero.
It is erroneous to assume that the vigilantes are barmy fanatics. Most are intelligent, well-read and highly ethical. Nearly all are Khshnoomists, a religious philosophy founded by a simple nondescript man from Surat, Behramsha Shroff. While on a vacation somewhere in present day Afghanistan, the semi-literate, stuttering Shroff was whisked away by a caravan to an invisible, spiritually advanced community in Demavand, Iran, and reappeared years later in his native Surat to stun scholars with his fluent extempore lectures on esoteric Zoroastrianism. The Khshnoomists are prolific writers and knowledgeable about comparative religions.
These vigilantes want to shake the community out of its callous indifference. Many liberals too have the same objective. However the vigilantes don’t mince matters. They deride, decry, defame, denigrate and demolish all those who dilute the pristine purity of the Zoroastrian DNA by implanting their seed into non-Parsi wombs and vice versa. Contrary to the traditional theological position of all souls being judged on a Day of Judgment, the vigilantes adhere to the more popular belief in karma and reincarnation with a caveat that, generally speaking, Parsis will reincarnate as Parsis only.
They have honesty of purpose and intellectual integrity (barring the few genuine cranks amongst them). Their knowledge of the occult is excellent. The vigilantes do not spare their own families for deviant conduct. They walk the talk and practice what they preach. They won’t spare imposters either. Shroff is the ultimate guru and those who tried to set themselves up similarly (like one Minocheher Pundole who headed a red cap-wearing, vegetarian cult called Pundolites though he himself continued to consume meat purportedly due to his advanced cellular structure, once conjuring up carrot cutlets out of nowhere for his hungry disciples in an Udvada hotel) are dismissed as charlatans by the vigilantes.
Like most esoteric groups, the Parsi vigilantes are obsessed with ritual purity. Nirang, consecrated urine of an uncastrated albino bull, is their favorite purification agent for cleansing both body and mind. They are unsparing of practicing priests who do not scrupulously observe rules of purity (thorough washing of the body, changing of clothes and performing an elaborate kusti after every sprinkle and tinkle even during the night is a tough prescription to follow, particularly for those with enlarged prostates). Enjoined also is eating food cooked only by non-menstruating Parsis and no touching of juddins. To constantly fight all kinds of spiritual pollution, what they call druj or daruji, is non-negotiable.
Mainstream orthodox scholars dismiss the Khshnoomists as being a cult. Liberals find them repulsive, fanatical, fundamentalists. The Parsi media either ignores them or lampoons them. In the absence of a thought leader like the late Adi Doctor, the vigilantes often squabble among themselves. A few years ago they were strident, caustic, carping, even abusive. Now aside from a quarterly journal, Parsi Pukar, they rely on social media to disseminate their beliefs and appear to have gone on the defensive. Some women who have currently approached the courts to agitate for the rights of interfaith married women are vocal and aggressive. They dub the vigilantes as racists and white supremacists. The vigilantes are putting off Parsi youth by propagating their ideas, they say.
History may record that the vigilantes have unwittingly prevented the destruction of our unique anthropological identity; otherwise we would have long been lost in the great Indian melting pot. Their xenophobia and closed door policies may have preserved the core heritage of Zoroastrianism. Sometimes political correctness can hasten the extinction of micro minorities.
Soshyos, the savior, will appear and reverse our demographic decline and dispel our ignorance of, and indifference to, our unparalleled spiritual heritage, promise the vigilantes. Until then the Magavs (divine beings or Masters) of the great Zoroastrian heirarchy will continue to protect our fire temples and our faith. You had better start reciting a few Patet Pashemanis every night if you don’t wish to be halted at the entrance of the Chinavat Bridge.
Berjis Desai, lawyer and author of Oh! Those Parsis and Towers of Silence, is a chronicler of the community.