Two researchers discuss Bombay Parsis’
connection with the slave trade in the colonial city
Farrokh Jijina
Certain Parsis of Calcutta are also reputed to have been slave owners in the (19th) century… Whether any members of the community owned them in Bombay, we have no information. Most probably they did,” noted city historian Jeejeebhoy Rustomjee Byramjee Jeejeebhoy (JRB, 1885-1960) in an essay titled "Slave trade in old Bombay” in the 1931 issue of the Sanj Vartaman Annual. JRB’s composition is part of JRB Jeejeebhoy’s Bombay Vignettes: Explorations in the History of Bombay, a compilation of 41 of his essays edited by researcher Murali Ranganathan (see "City chronicler,” Parsiana, December 21, 2018).
Jeejeebhoy condemed "these un-Christian transactions (that)......