At the opening ceremony of the refurbished Bhabha bunglis at Bombay’s Doongerwadi this October 18, social worker Anahita Desai stated that the era of large individual donors belonged mainly to the past centuries (see "Benefactor for bunglis," Events and Personalities, pg 12). Today trusts and multiple individuals are more likely to donate money for worthwhile community causes, she believed. So Katy and Noshir Gotla’s largesse of Rs 47 lakhs for the bunglis’ refurbishment was all the more commendable.
Yet less than seven years ago, the single largest donation ever (USD 22.5 million/Rs 165 crores) to the community was pledged by the Hong Kong based family of Pervin and Jal Shroff. Around 20 years prior, Pallon Mistry of Shapoorji Pallonji and Company was prepared to pay for the construction of a residential structure that could accommodate around 70 Parsi families in the Dadysett Atash Behram complex.
The proposals of both, the Shroffs and Mistry, were not only vigorously opposed by a handful of dissenters but aspersions were cast on the motives of the two donor families. Both projects were shelved. Mercifully the Pallonji Shapoorji Home for Senior Citizens at The B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital grounds went through in 2006.
In North America, most of the early dar-e-mehrs in the 1970s onwards were funded by wealthy Iranian Zoroastrians such as Arbab Rustam and Morvarid Guiv and in more recent times by contemporary, often self-made, high wealth individuals. In March 2019 the Bhandara Atash Kadeh was inaugurated in Houston, Texas by Shernaz and Feroze Bhandara who donated two million dollars (Rs 14.7 crores). The Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York and the Iranian Zoroastrian Association raised five million dollars (Rs 38 crores) for their new Arbab Rustam Guiv Dar-e-Mehr opened in 2016, most of it from individuals and the sale proceeds from their earlier property which had been funded by Guiv.
The Zartoshty brothers Faridoon and Mehraban assisted many community institutions while Rusy and Purviz Shroff of Hong Kong and Dr Cyrus and Adar Poonawalla have funded many charitable institutions including the setting up of hospitals.
The small and large continue to co-exist side by side. But the total universe of donors has increased. Individuals such as Bill and Melinda Gates or Warren Buffet still grab eyeballs. But as Karl Zinsmeister, author of The Almanac of American Philanthropy notes in the Stanford Social Innovation Review of May 2016, that while Gates donated four billion dollars annually, the total donations by Americans was a staggering USD 360 billion (Rs 26,55,090 crores).
In the USA only 14% of donations come from foundations, the bulk is from individual families donating USD 2,500 (Rs 1,84,381) per household annually, states Zinsmeister. The US government gives USD 31 billion in foreign aid while lay US citizens donated USD 39 billion for the same purpose. (The Indian government discourages foreign donations to Indian nongovernmental organizations.)
Unfortunately there are no such statistics compiled for Parsi philanthropy. But the trend towards more individuals donating to charitable causes is likely in most democracies. Those who have a surplus of income over expenditure, assist others.
Smaller Parsi donors in India often extend financial assistance for maintenance, running expenses, refurbishment of institutions, and so on. To maintain the status quo is the priority. The larger donors may attempt to create new structures and establishments. But any new venture is fraught with risks. Some perceive anything new as a threat. When the public raised funds for the construction of the Anjumanna Atash Behram at Dhobi Talao in 1897, the nearby H. B. Wadia Atash Behram trustees opposed the move and went to court. They lost the case. So also when the Pundole agiary was first mooted for Udvada.
When Jerbai Wadia and her two sons built the five Parsi baugs we do not know whether they were feted or criticized. They are the community’s single largest benefactors. But Jerbai’s great-grandson Nusli, who is married to a non-Parsi, would be unwelcome in the Karani Agiary ensconced in Cusrow Baug. No prayers would be recited for him at the fire temple. The trustees, the panthaky and the priests have proclaimed they will not perform any ceremonies for Parsis who marry non-Parsis.
What we are witnessing is the hardening of traditionalist beliefs. Hard-core Hindus vigorously opposed the Tanishq advertisement showing a Muslim mother-in-law placing a Tanishq necklace around her pregnant Hindu daughter-in-law’s neck during a baby shower. Amid allegations of promoting interfaith marriages and glorifying "love-jihad" (Muslims conspiring to marry Hindus and converting them to Islam), the advertisement was hastily withdrawn by the Tata Group company (see "Titan advertisement’s ‘inadvertent stirrings,’" pg 16).
When the chief minister (CM) of Maharashtra state of which Bombay is the capital refused to open places of worship to the public to restrict the spread of the coronavirus, the governor of the state appointed by the right wing, militant Hindu nationalistic Bharatiya Janata Party in power at the center, inquired sarcastically if the CM had "suddenly turned secular, (a) term you hated." The CM who belongs to the militant, Hindutva Shiv Sena party that claimed to be active in the demolishing of the Babri Masjid and participated in the communal riots that followed in the city, retorted he had taken an oath to support the Indian Constitution whose preamble defines India as a secular state.
In such an environment a donor has to tread carefully. When the cosmopolitan Prayer Hall was being constructed at the Worli crematorium for conducting funerary ceremonies for Parsis and others who wished to be cremated, initially there was secrecy about the project. The Hall is built on the Bombay Municipal Corporation land and an outcry from the traditionalists could have scuttled the proposal. But fortunately the A. H. Wadia Trust funded structure was completed and has proven even more of a boon during the present pandemic when Covid infected corpses are not permitted to be consigned in the dakhmas.
Merely donating money is not sufficient. One has also to obtain a no-objection clearance, a Parsi marriage certificate and good character references. No wonder donors shy away.