On a 10-day visit to India Mobed Mehraban Pouladi, president of the Council of Iranian Mobeds attended a humbandagi at the Bhikha Behram Well, visited the Iranshah Atash Behram in Udvada and the office of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet amongst other places.
Pouladi, who does not speak English, was accompanied by his translator Prof Saloumeh Gholami, global professor of the British Academy in Zoroastrian Studies at the University of Cambridge, faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern studies. Pouladi estimates that there are around 22,000 Zoroastrians in Iran, states a report in The Times of India, December 23, 2024. The Zoroastrians there are "highly respected.” Persecution had ceased, he noted.
Mobed Mehraban Pouladi (wearing pugree) at the Bhikha Behram Well
Photo: Sooni Taraporevala
But a report in the Wall Street Journal that appeared in Mint dated December 27 noted that following the fall of Syria, amongst other reasons, "the Iranian currency has fallen hard, and discontent is widespread. The government also faces a dire energy shortage that has caused electricity outages, despite having some of the world’s biggest reserves of natural gas and crude oil…
"Those who suffer the most when authoritarians fall on hard times are often ordinary people.”
Parsiana sent an email and SMS to Gholami requesting a meeting with Pouladi but received no response. We were keen to find out about the state of the priesthood in Iran