Aside from having to change calendars and diaries, the end of the year rituals also provide editors an opportunity to fill their columns with past recollections and future fears.
2006 was in many ways a remarkable year for the community. It saw the maximum amount of controversies both in the political and religious fields. As the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India and the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) chairman Minoo R. Shroff remarked at the all-India body meet in Bombay last September, “I’ve never seen such tumultuous times.”
His statement was not an exaggeration. Ever since the disruption of the Federation meeting in Ahmedabad in November 2004, the community has been in a state of agitation. The simmering differences first erupted over the formation of a world body. A concocted fear that millions of converts to Zoroastrianism would convert or usurp all our real estate, pollute our racial purity and defile our religious institutions, caused numerous small anjumans to panic.
In place of the world body which has eluded the Zoroastrian community for 45 years, the vocal orthodox offered the international community an alternative called the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ). The criteria for joining this conglomeration was race primarily and religion secondly.
WAPIZ gained notoriety with its fortnightly columns in the Afternoon Despatch and Courier, a paper incidentally started by a liberal Parsi and his non-Parsi wife. Practising the armchair school of journalism, the editors of the WAPIZ Page merrily go about libeling any and every person they perceive as being liberal or who crosses their path. Large types, purloined photographs and self congratulatory messages are standard fare. No thoughtful, researched articles, no interviews of substance, no journalistic field ventures to gauge the mood and feel of the community are published. And all this at a phenomenal cost of reportedly a lakh-and-a-half every two weeks. In addition WAPIZ’s affinity for litigation saw its members in endless court battles with builder Zarir Bhathena, all of which they lost. Their obsession over the development of the land in the Wadia Agiary compound at Lalbaug drained their energy and resources.
But when another momentous occasion shook the community in mid 2006, WAPIZ was once again back in the courts, one of their favorite haunts. Four BPP trustees — Shroff, Dinshaw Tamboly, Manek Engineer and Burjor Antia — in an ill-conceived move tendered their resignations from the august body. They stated they were unhappy over the functioning of co-trustee Dinshaw Mehta and decided it was time to part ways.
Fearful of the state’s charity commissioner stepping in to manage the 330-year-old premier trust, frantic parleys were held with groups of every persuasion. WAPIZ rejoiced at the imminent departure and discomfiture of the four middle-of-the-road trustees, while the Alert Zoroastrians’ Association (AZA) grimaced over the thought of their bête noire, Mehta assuming center stage.
Dismayed at the four trustees’ unilateral decision, the community chastised all six trustees for their antics. Stung by the public outburst the trustees decided to settle their differences amicably. The resignations were withdrawn and just when the community heaved a sigh of relief, WAPIZ moved the High Court claiming that resignations once submitted could not be withdrawn. And AZA sympathizers, not to be outdone, moved the charity commissioner asking all six trustees be ousted.
Amid all the controversy, a middle-aged, middle-class former qawwali singer Dhun Baria raised the spectre of Doongerwadi in the national media.
The trustees’ imbroglio now shifted to the back of the community’s consciousness as the disposal of the dead became the flavor or should we say odor of the day.
So is it all business as usual? Has not the community time and again witnessed similar