A few days ago I read an article titled ‘India’s Parsi Population May Be Silenced by Success’ in the Asia Times, 13 May 08 by Sudha Ramachandran (thanks Rustom). The article talked about how the Parsi population is dwindling by the minute, yet Parsis, as a community cannot come to a consensus about whether they should allow Parsis (especially women), who have married people other than Parsis, to continue to be a part of the community. This is sad, considering Parsis are a highly educated, and philanthropic community, who have contributed significantly to Indian society.
Basically, the already miniscule community has managed to split itself even further, into two factions. The Traditional, who believe that if outsiders (read people who have married outside the community, and this number is growing hourly) are allowed to be a part of the community, we will lose the essence of the community and the ‘purity’. I agree that we may lose a lot of customs, practices, rituals and beliefs over time, but I don’t see how it going to affect the ‘purity’. And the compromise we have to make to retain the ‘purity’ will be simply vanishing altogether. On the other hand you have the Liberals, who feel that we should welcome those who have married others, and let their children be Parsis. At any rate, the children of a Parsi father OR mother, should be allowed to be Parsis.
All this reminds me of an article I once read a loooong time back, at least ten years or so. It was the Times of India Middle, and it was titled ‘The Last Parsi in the Tonga’, where the author had written on much the same lines, but in a very gentle and nostalgic way. The author dreaded the day when he would see the last Parsi getting down from the tonga.
Another thing is, and I would like to point this out to the author, that there is no record of how many Parsis reached India in the 8th century on their boats. There must not have been too many of them, as only some boats managed to reach India. So maybe, in all those centuries from then till now, our population has actually increased to 100,000. Who knows?
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