The letter, "Insulting the community” by Kerfegar Antia (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, July 7, 2010), was interesting. One can understand his outburst and even banning your publication from his readership.
His actions clearly bring out the great divide in the community between those who are kom choost (loyal to the community) like Antia, and those who are dharam choost (loyal to Asho Zarathushtra’s religion). The dialogs and debates between the two will go on till there are no Parsis left to carry these on!
Those loyal to the community believe that purity of the race is most vital and we cannot accept anyone else into our fold and religion. Those loyal to the religion believe that the community and the religion are two separate entities and should not be mixed up. Asho Zarathushtra’s religion is meant for all human beings and it is not proper to deny anyone the right to follow it. One has to be born to Parsi parents to be a Parsi, but anyone can become a follower of Zarathushtra, if he/she so wishes and should be initiated into the religion by performing his/her navjote.
It is high time the community came to grips with the most vital question: What is more important, keeping the identity of the community or survival of the religion? (In order to qualify the question, I like to define our religion as the one proclaimed by Asho Zarathushtra in his Gathas and not the "fatwa religion” as defined by our vada dasturs.)
Our high priests, Antia and others of their ilk keep coming out with words like "tenets and traditions” of our religion. Can one request them to spell these out so that we can understand what is really meant by these high sounding words?
Ours is an educated community and everyone has her/his own views and opinions resulting in differences and factions. In my opinion, all problems facing our small community can be easily resolved if every Parsi (who claims to be a Zarathushti), chooses to follow only what Asho Zarathushtra proclaimed, setting aside her/his personal views and opinions.
KERSEE KABRAJI
Poona
kerseekabraji@gmail.com