Today fewer athornan parents are inclined to put their sons through the navar and maratab training which is required for the priesthood. And few of those who complete the training actually take up the vocation. As a result, the community’s institutions for training athornan boys have hardly any enrolments every year. According to your editorial, "Significant at 60?” (Parsiana, November 7-20, 2023), a report by the Athornan Mandal noted: "This vocation is on the downslide since many years, with fewer and fewer numbers entering it… Only one student had enrolled in the Athornan Madressa (at Dadar) during the year, bringing the number of students to a mere 14. The M. F. Cama Athornan Institute in Andheri closed down some years ago. Does a similar fate await the Dadar seminary?”
The good news is that several people within the community have proposed solutions to the problem of shortage of mobeds and some have even suggested proper research being done before arriving at solutions. On October 8, 2023, the Athornan Mandal organized a seminar of mobeds and lay people at the Banaji Atash Behram Hall where several speakers expressed their views on the causes of the problem and proposed solutions.
Seminar organized by Athornan Mandal at Banaji Atash Behram Hall Photo: Sarosh Daruwalla
The community has long identified one of the causes for this sorry situation as being the generally inadequate salaries, benefits and living conditions of priests in most places of worship. Despite the impressive financial resources in the community and its legendary philanthropy, the situation is not likely to improve in the foreseeable future. The priesthood remains an out-of-the-question career option for an increasing number of youngsters.
There is the well-known "cause-consequence chain” in human affairs whereby a cause when investigated further is itself recognized as a consequence of an earlier cause. In the present case, the shortage of mobeds is believed to be caused by the paltry earnings and standard of living of our priests. However, if we go further up the cause-consequence chain, these factors have been regarded as a consequence whose suggested cause is the supposedly dwindling interest in religion by the community. One could go still further up the cause-consequence chain and label dwindling interest in religion as a consequence and propose something else as being its cause.
But let me return to the mobed shortage problem. The community as a whole seems to view mobedi as a career choice of the last resort for its sons, notwithstanding the flattering words community members may mouth when discussing the subject in public.
Our mobeds are products of what we may call "mobed makers.” I use this as a catch-all phrase for institutions plus individual dasturs and mobeds who may be training young boys to become navars and maratabs. If we analyze the mobed shortage problem in an honest, marketing frame of mind we find that our mobed makers seem to be putting out a product which is not well accepted in the "market” (community). The product may have been very well accepted (even respected) in times past. But times have changed, and in today’s world it seems the community does not think much of the product and is therefore unwilling to pay more for it. In fact, it has virtually shut off the supply of "raw material” to the mobed makers!
It is pointless for mobed makers to blame the market and declare that it does not appreciate the quality and worth of its product. That’s not done in the field of marketing. When an organization in the outside world sees that its product is not moving well, the professional thing for the organization to do is to undertake research about customer needs and expectations; obtain customer feedback on the perceived shortcomings of that product; study the features of similar products in the market that may be moving well; and set about improving their product’s features. Our mobed makers need to follow this course.
It is time for them to commission research by an appropriate social science studies institute about what the community needs and expects from its mobeds. What is there about this inherently noble profession that turns off the parents in our community from sending their young sons to our seminaries? Reputed educational institutions are aware of the requirements of the outside world where their graduates will have to live and work. They are constantly refining and developing their curriculum and teaching methods to produce graduates who are eagerly sought after and well paid. Our mobed trainers need to do likewise.
Some may argue that the concepts of marketing and secular education are inappropriate for dealing with the problem of the shortage of mobeds. They may argue that the mobeds’ religious education has been eternally fixed by our religion and traditions and cannot be changed, leave alone improved on. But no one is asking to change the mobeds’ religious education. What is suggested is to augment their worth and value in the community by appropriate secular education so that students are not only good performers of rituals, but also friends and counsellors to the community regarding their secular problems.
Fortunately, we have had scholar priests in our community who have augmented their priestly training with secular learning which they have then used to benefit the community. These scholar priests developed their secular credentials on their own much after their mobedi training was over. They have discharged their priestly duties through conducting routine prayers in agiaries and performed navjotes, weddings, jashans, nirangdins, etc. But they have also served the community through their lectures, talks, books and other writings — even on lay subjects. They have counselled individuals and families on their personal problems when approached for such guidance. Our mobed makers need to raise religious education to that level.
It all comes down to the following question — what is the essence of a priestly life: rituals alone or rituals plus ministering? How the mobed makers respond to this question will decide the availability, social stature and living standards of our future mobeds. And there will be a cascading effect. Improved social stature will lead to a greater awareness in the community of the benefits of living a Zarthoshti life. And that in turn may improve the footfalls in our places of worship.
Ervad (Dr) Jamshed A. Modi is an engineer and management professional with over 30 years’ experience in consultancy organizations in USA and India. He has taught at top business schools in Bombay.