By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - The clock is ticking for one of India’s most prosperous communities, the Parsis. Always small, the Parsi population is diminishing at an alarming rate, prompting fears that the community may not survive the century.

According to the 2001 census, India has less than 70,000 Parsis, a 40% drop from 1941, when their population peaked at nearly 114,900. Since 1941, the Parsi population has decreased by about 10% per decade, compared to 21% growth for India’s population as a whole.

More worrying figures have emerged since the 2001 census. A survey indicates that only 99 Parsis were born in the year to August 2007, compared with 223 in 2001, 206 in 2002, and 174 in 2006. If the present trend continues there may be no more than 23,000 Parsis by the year 2020.
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From The Economist print edition
Apr 17th 2008 | DELHI

Adherents of an ancient faith worry about its disappearance

TWO of India’s biggest business clans—Tata and Godrej—are Parsees, descendants of Zoroastrians, who fled the Muslim invasion of Persia for India more than 1,000 years ago. But well though some of its members have done, the Parsee community is dwindling. At the time of the 2001 census India had fewer than 70,000 Parsees, a 40% drop since 1941. Since then, the decline has accelerated. A survey suggests that only 99 Parsees were born in the year to August 2007, compared with 223 in 2001.

The community’s very success has played a part in its shrinkage. Young Parsees tend to put off marriage until they have established careers, “leaving time for two children only, if that,” says Mehroo Bengalee, a Parsee member of the government’s National Commission for Minorities. Emigration is another factor: like many prosperous Indians, Parsees tend to go to university overseas, and stay there. But most important is the large number of women who marry non-Parsees. Their children are not recognised as Parsees.

The Parsee community, concentrated around Mumbai, is trying to push up the birth rate. New Parsee-only fertility centres are being built. Young Parsees are given lectures about the benefits of early breeding. Girls and boys are brought together at youth camps, in an effort to encourage inter-Parsee marriage.

Many Parsee women, meanwhile, complain that the one change that could stem the decline will never come. They would like the concession that allows men in mixed marriages to bring their children up as Parsees to be extended to them. “My brother’s children are recognised as Parsees; mine are not,” says Shireen Vakil-Miller who, like her brother, married “outside”. The effect on the Parsee population of her hometown, Delhi, is dramatic. When she arrived in 1991, there were thought to be 800 Parsees in the capital. Today, that number has fallen by half.

An interview with Dr. Farzana Irani.

Irani was born and raised in India, where she graduated from medical school. She immigrated in 1978 to Albany, where she is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Niskayuna. She and her husband, Khushru, live in Loudonville. They have three sons: Khoozan, 25; Perzan, 23; and Farzad, 19.

What is the origin of Zoroastrianism?

The ancient religion was founded about 3,500 years ago in Yazd in what is today Iran. The prophet we follow was named Zartosh, or Zoroaster. His followers are known as Zartoshi or Zoroastrian.

It is the world’s oldest monotheistic religion. People were idol worshipers at that time. Zoroaster told the people about Ahura Mazda, one God. We respect natural things like sun and water and fire.

Boatloads of Zoroastrians migrated to India in the 10th century. There, they were known as Irani, later as Farsi for the language they spoke, then as Parsi.

The three important mottos are good thoughts, good words and good deeds.

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Paris community is caught in a contradiction, a community whose numbers are fast dwindling but is adamant on shutting its doors on the children of mixed marriages. It is an old debate that has resurfaced with a group of liberals trying yet again to coax orthodox Parsis to allow the children of intermarriages to practice the Zoroastrian religion.

About 40,000 Parsis are concentrated in Mumbai. It is a community that has developed a unique and colourful identity since the first Parsis came to India more than a thousand years ago, probably the reason why orthodox Parsis zealously keep the faith.

”I don’t think inter-caste marriage is the answer to decreasing numbers. In fact I feel that it would lead to loss of ethnicity of the religion,” said Noshir H Darawala, Executive Secretary, Centre for Advancement of Philanthrophy.

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