Musings of a Mumbai Parsi

TIME TO TEST THE WATERS

There is a fair chance that inter-faith married Parsi women will gain parity with men

An inter-faith married Parsi lady apprehends that someday the priest in the agiary (Editor’s Note: the fire temple) will prevent the entry of her toddler son. Can he, she queries. Yes, we reply, as the law stands today. Instead of waiting for that humiliating experience, why not move the High Court, we ask. Her chances of success are very good indeed. We do believe that Petit vs Jeejeebhoy and Bella vs Saklat (google for them) are no longer good law after the Constitution of India conferred the fundamental right to gender equality (no intelligible differentia exists to prevent putting children of inter-faith married Parsi men and women on par). In addition, India is a signatory to many conventions on human rights which further strengthens the chances of these two old judgments being bypassed.

The recent judgment of Justices Dhananjay Chandrachud and Anoop Mohta of the Bombay High Court in the banned priest’s case makes helpful observations in this regard and indicates the present thinking of our judiciary. Our young lady is still not convinced. What if I fail, she asks. Presently, many inter-faith married Parsi mothers blithely take their children to the fire temple and virtually no one objects. If I fail, all this can stop, they reason. So why invite trouble? This is exactly the reasoning of the matronly ladies of AIMZ (Association of Inter-Married Zoroastrians) who have been unable to make this leap of faith.

But look what happened to Goolrookh Gupta’s case, they contend. While we still believe that Gupta will ultimately succeed, we have always maintained that her individual facts were not ideal to make a test case of (name change to Neha, purported filing of income tax returns as a member of “Hindu Undivided Family” member etc.). None of the so-called legal infirmities in the Gupta case will, however, apply in this case.

Recently, a non-Parsi journalist lady married to a Parsi male, recounted the story of her four-year old daughter, on her first visit to Iranshah, Udwada, loudly shouting ‘Ganpati Bappa Moriya’, in the sanctum sanctorum, to the horror of the not so amused devotees and a stern priest asking her to be taken away. The moral of the story being that culture and way of life is imbibed from the mother, and not so much from the father. (Editor’s Note: it is another matter that many Parsis are devout Ganpati worshippers – read about this phenomenon in other posts on this blog) All the more reason to end this irrational discrimination.

For obvious reasons, we would not like to reveal the precise legal strategy for commencing such a test case.  Suffice it to say that all it requires is a daring Parsi lady. She will receive overwhelming support from the who’s who of the community across the country and several eminent senior counsel would be only too happy to represent her without charging a fee. For all you know, the mainstream orthodox (like the WAPIZ) may not even resist much. Many in the community believe that this discrimination must end.

Will the AIMZ take a lead, as it logically ought to? We think not. Hence, we require a couple of Parsi ladies, married under the Special Marriage Act (registered marriage), preferably to Hindus, and born of both Parsi Zoroastrian parents. This is only to ensure that some irrelevant objections do not deflect from the main objective.

Some candidates will emerge to bell the donkey. The faster this happens, the better. It is ludicrous to put a percentage prospect of success on the outcome of litigation in India, but we shall make bold to assert a 80% chance.

Those who anticipate that this would open the floodgates are mistaken. The number of such children (born of Parsi mothers and non-Parsi fathers, the latter seeking entry of their children into our faith) will not be more than 300. Out of these, hardly 10% are likely to avail of Parsi charities, which anyway are running out of beneficiaries. No sensible liberal is advocating outright conversion, which would be politically disastrous and destroy our unique ethnic identity. However, justice and fair play demand that both sexes must be treated equally. Someone from the fringe is bound to quip that if you are so keen to end discrimination, why don’t you also exclude children of inter-married Parsi males? If the fringe elements wish to accelerate our already dramatic demographic decline even further, then what is one to say? There may be a dearth of Parsis, but not of idiots.

- Parsiana, June 2014