The census report makes a special mention of Parsis, more specifically the signs of definite decline in their population in the country. I don’t think there can be any foolproof solution to this problem. However, there can be some improvement in lengthening the life of the community as a whole, if we permitted all children of mixed marriages, irrespective of whether the father or mother were Parsi, to be initiated into the religion, if the parents so choose.
But it is Bombay Parsis alone who will either preserve or destroy the Zoroastrian religion. In spite of their herculean efforts, the second and third generation of Parsis abroad will end up in the melting pots of their new countries. It is believed that a few Zoroastrians from Iran went to China when others sailed to India, but they got mingled with the Chinese. It is in India alone, due to its 5,000 years’ tradition of equality, democracy and liberty, that the world’s microscopic minority — or molecularity — can survive, until it destroys itself.
When Zoroastrian Iran was defeated by the Arabs, did the prevailing inequality in society brought about by and leading to social discontent prompt almost all Zoroastrians to willingly embrace equality propagated by the Islamic persuasion? To escape the jezia tax could be another reason.
Muslims ruled Spain for 781 years from 711 to 1492, but the people of Spain remained Christians. Then, how is it that almost all Zoroastrians of Iran became Muslims? Did the Zoroastrian community fade as it failed to adjust to the changing society?
Few in the world have heard of "Zoroastrians.” When I applied to the Nagpur postal authorities to show my stamp exhibits on "History of Zoroastrians,” since they had never heard this word, it was corrected to "Loro Austrians!” As the entry was already approved for exhibition, subsequently the mistake could not be corrected.
NOSHIR M. LAM