The proposed formation of an independent council of high priests assisted by scholar priests should normally be a welcome development. After all the clergy is an important and integral part of any society. History shows us time and again the crucial, though not always beneficial, role played by the ecclesiastic orders.
Among Zoroastrians, many have moaned the lack of a pope or a supreme spiritual leader who would be the final authority on socioreligious and spiritual matters. North American Zoroastrians have two representative mobed councils. India has none. True the Athornan Mandal in Bombay exists but its influence and standing in the contemporary community is marginal. It also lacks the necessary authority to see that its writ is carried out.
Thus many may have rejoiced when the Jam-e-Jamshed weekly of February 20 carried a front page article titled, “Historic Vada Dasturjis’ Council (VDC) formed.” The piece went on to note that a historic meeting of the Vada Dasturjis took place on roz Ram, mah Shahrevar, Saturday, February 5, 2011. After deliberations, they unanimously came to two main decisions:
¡It is agreed that an independent council of six Vada Dasturjis [Dasturs (Dr) Peshotan Dastur Hormazdyar Mirza (Udvada), Khurshed Dastoor Kaikobad Dastoor (Udvada), (Dr) Kaikhusroo Dastur Minocher JamaspAsa (Bombay), (Dr) Firoze M. Kotwal (Bombay), K. N. Dastur Meherji Rana (Navsari) and Cyrus Dastur (Surat)] assisted by the three scholar priests [Ervads Parvez Bajan, (Dr) Rooyintan Peer and (Dr) Ramiyar Karanjia], be established and the necessary steps be taken in the matter.
¡The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) be requested to take more active steps in strengthening the system of dakhmenashini.
According to K. N. Dastur the council will deliberate on religious matters of public interest and issue a joint communiqué. They will also define who is a dastur as versus a mobed. (The Bombay Parsi Punchayet is reportedly upset at the formation of the VDC as they are forming their own mobed council to be headed by Kotwal. The new BPP body is expected to give Rs 15,000 monthly to each full-time practising mobed.)
So why should this proposed VDC be a cause for concern? Largely because nearly all the pronouncements made by the priests either singly or jointly have been on the basis of race, more than religion. To them, Zoroastrianism is not a universal faith. They see it as a tribal or ethnic religion which only people born of Parsi/Irani fathers can profess. And if they had their way the qualification would further be extended to Parsi/Irani Zoroastrian fathers and mothers and that too for at least two generations, if not more. It is only the fear of the law of the land that deters them from insisting on this extended racial qualification.
[According to the judgment in the Parsi Punchayet Case of 1908, a Parsi is defined as one born of a Parsi father (the term Parsi including Iranis) but the priests often allege secular law cannot infringe on religious beliefs.]
The second decision the high priests “unanimously” agreed to was to strengthen dakhmenashini. One would have thought the declining population, the lack of priests, the increasing percentage of interfaith marriages would have figured as primary concerns, but no.
The high priests appear to many as being out of sync with events in the community. Some view them as anachronisms. Their diktats are derogatively termed as fatwas and are openly challenged both in the media and the courts of law. They are termed bigots, racists and dismissed as ayatollahs — despots who are impervious to the civil liberties of the citizenry.
Of the six high priests, only Khurshed Dastoor struck a conciliatory note when in an interview in the FEZANA Journal, Fall 2010 he defended the rights of Parsi women married to non-Parsis and the priests who are termed “renegades” by the BPP. “Our religion is based on gender equality and if a Parsi/Irani girl or boy chooses to marry outside of our faith and does so by way of a civil ceremony he/she has, according to me, every right to continue to attend the agiary or atash behram of his/her choosing,” he stated. “I am of the school of thought that once you are ordained as a navar or martab no one can defrock you as you have been ordained in the house of God,” he added.
Perhaps the same malady that afflicts the priesthood also extends to the BPP trustees and their youth wing ZYNG (Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation). The BPP trustees believe because they have won an election they can disregard dissenters. But when the trustees realized their internecine feuds and fundamentalist public stances had alienated them from the electorate they did not hold the second annual state-of-the-community report they had promised during the election meets.
ZYNG also demonstrated they were out of tune with the sentiments of the community when they published the calendar of provocatively attired Parsi female models. The trustees tried to make light of the endeavor with BPP trustee Yazdi Desai commenting, “The BPP has wholeheartedly endorsed the ZYNG calendar. I am sure that there will be some of my dear orthodox friends who will disapprove. My request to them is to please allow our youth a little indulgence. Then they will surely stay with us.” But when it comes to other issues such as the so-called “renegade” priests, no such “indulgence” is entertained.
Reinforcing their image of being a fun loving, hard drinking, speed dating, partying organization, the ZYNG advertisement in the Jam-e-Jamshed of February 20, 2011 for a Jamshedi Navroz New Year bash offered “unlimited starters, dinner, dessert, breezers, beer and alcohol” for Rs 600. A disclaimer at the bottom of the ad however stated “ZYNG strongly discourages drinking and driving.”
People who hold public office or positions of leadership are always under public scrutiny. Their every move is viewed with a measure of skepticism. To overcome this distrust they have to be responsive to the needs of all the people, not only the party faithful. The formation of the high priest council is an indication of the clergy trying to reassert its standing in the community.
The priests will only achieve their purpose if they take a more rational and compassionate approach to community issues. Otherwise the formation of the council will only result in more ignominy being heaped on them.