Rita Farhat Mukand

The Parsi community is said to be on the fringes of a “suicidal mission” because they don’t feel their economic or tangible worth anymore, which is why phenomenal efforts are now being made to revive the community. Recently, TISS-ParZor launched the 10-month Online Certificate Program on Culture and Heritage Studies, a 20-credit Certificate Programme comprising various courses from different tracks, each carrying 2 credits.

Dr. Shernaz Cama, who retired from the Lady Sri Ram College of Delhi is the honorary director of the ParZor Foundation. The revival of Parsi culture was her brainchild. It all started in 1999 when UNESCO asked Dr Shenaz to create a project on the Parsee Zoroastrians with the simple aim of documenting and recording a culture facing extinction. She recalls that “there are many who said that in 2025 we would become, ‘A Tribe’ In the census statistics but very soon a recording and research project turned into a revival program.”

Gathering from across the globe voluntarily and metaphorically from India to Canada to Singapore, and Russia, this group of people are working on securing strong foundations to ensure that the ancient Bronze Age civilization continues into the future even after them. Dr. Shernaz Cama observed that “A culture that has survived three millennia surely has much to offer our world today, so join us in the journey of discovery across time and geography into an exciting space of ideas and positivity for our entire world and civilization.”

Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary Asia, India’s first and largest circulating wildlife and ecology was the chief guest and he applauded the Parsi community for doing so much for humanity and the world. “I would like nothing better than the Parsi community to go back into its own origins and its own values and bring together people of different faiths and different values and explain to them all our religion, all our art, all our culture, all our music, all our dance, all our philosophies, all our everything, it was inspired by nature, and if it was inspired by nature what sense does it make now to sit back like we are watching a tennis match as spectators and watch our inspiration piece by piece be dismantled,” he said.

Dr. Shernaz Cama

Vanshika Singh, a teacher in Singapore, PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore called the Parsis a civilization that somehow cracked the code of making life easier, not just for those striving to survive but also for the ones that go behind the wheels and motions of setting things up and the community's large respect for creation that comes with fundamental beliefs, that comes with a certain belief that the way to go with perhaps in resonance and harmony with all other elements. She said, “Back in time, there was a civilization that was able to value the worker, able to value water, able to value wind, and it was able to value the earth. The wisdom of the community in their principles and the wisdom of the civilization is in its ability to crack certain design principles right, which was respect for all.” Vanshika Singh is deeply committed to the environment and Zoroastrian thought exploring the rich legacy of the Parsi community.

Dr. Shernaz Cama had actually made field trips to the regions of the Fire Temple making recordings of the Yashna that they were permitted to record, the Sacred Wells that they found along the Silk Route and expounded on the different narratives of history will be touched upon in her course, looking at the “architectural grandeur of Persepolis, the scientific systems of irrigation, the Zoroastrian concept of nurturing the elements, the creation care found in the Parsee tradition, their crafts and textiles, and also takes one into the worlds of multiple migrations and Diaspora to the East and West, it showcases a multicultural thread in the tapestry of humanity, a thread woven from four traditions, Persian, Indian, Chinese and the European.”

Dr Jenny Rose, a former lecturer in Zoroastrianism at Claremont University in California is taking a course on ecology focusing on the idea of Greening for the use of land and the produce of land to produce physical paradise connecting this to the Zoroastrian tradition and texts, for example, Cyrus' garden at Pasargadae and the ancient notion of draining swampy land for planting, the Freddie Mercury Garden in the UK, and the function of plants in Parsi community, rituals and domestic practice to celebrate and regenerate all aspects of the created world while looking to its future perfected state. Z priestly rituals, a connection between oral text and rituals, connected to oral text is oral testimony she says.

The Avestan language taught by Prof Almut Hintze is a leading scholar in the language who authored 8 publications. Professor Coomi Vevaina’s course with various authors and films illustrates how her course would cover many novelists and poets such as Keki Daruwalla, a Sahitya Akademi award-winning poet who worked all his life in the Indian Police service, Adil Jussawalla, Sahitya Akademi award-winning poet who studied in England to be an architect, Gieve Patel, a doctor, poet, playwright, painter and a part of the Green Movement. Rohinton Mistry Indian-born Canadian writer book of a story set in Bombay in 1971 depicting the Parsi culture and family life amid India’s volatile post-colonial politics and Anosh Irani, a Canada-based novelist and playwright will also talk about his novel.

Dr. Kerman Daruwalla would expound on the Parsi-Gujarati and Persian literature and the cultural exchange between Indian Zoroastrian priests and Iranian priests Indians asking them for directions on how to proceed with various religious matters.

Dr Fridaus Gandavia will cover print, media and journalism and Dr Meher Mistry will teach on the Parsi settlements on the Indian Western coast highlighting the Parsi community’s rise to prominence in India becoming a well-assimilated and thriving community in the socioeconomic milieu of India, along with studying their agricultural history, artisan gifts as weavers, traders, and brokers n their early settlements in the Port Towns of Gujarat such as Bharuch, Kombat and Surat in their trade of raw cotton and opium trade. The Parsis, a tiny community ultimately rose to powerful prominence as a business community in Mumbai.

TISS-ParZor faculty with Pro-Chancellor

Their migrations were from towns of Gujarat, towards Mumbai, East Africa and towards the interior Hinterland for timber and liquor trade. With the development of the railways, they eventually migrated all over India. While they had some turbulent beginnings, they were finally established as a peace-loving community with the introduction of social reforms, modern education, their role in the spread of modern medicine, and the increasing westernization of the community.

Their contribution towards industrialization is humongous along with their involvement in the national movement in India and their philanthropy has enriched individuals and the economy. Their position in the post-independence of India is explored during these courses. Parsi demographics are convened extensively by Prof Shivaraju.

Dr Abhimanyu Acharya discussed how Parsi theatre is a huge part of the cultural theatre and history of India, a precursor to Bollywood and the Hindi film industry while Indians still are unaware of this and do not know much about the first actors, writers, or directors of Parsi theatre who formulated the theatre industry to another level before Bollywood.  After its beginning in Mumbai, it began to evolve into various travelling theatre companies, which toured across India, especially north and western India which is now Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The ParZor Foundation was founded in 1999 under the auspices of UNESCO and focuses on the holistic preservation and promotion of Parsi Zoroastrian culture. Over the past 25 years, it has worked to highlight Zoroastrian contributions to global culture, history, philosophy, ecology, symbolism, art, and crafts, striving to safeguard this rich Bronze Age heritage from fading into obscurity.

For nearly 20 years, Parzor and TISS have collaborated on various demographic and social projects. Academics from TISS have partnered with Parzor on community-based initiatives, gaining valuable insights for broader dissemination. In August 2022, they formalized their partnership by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop the first systematic academic program on Parsi Zoroastrian Culture and Heritage.

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The Parsi culture is a vibrant and unique blend of traditions, beliefs, and practices stemming from the Zoroastrian faith, which originated in ancient Persia, and this innovative movement by the TISS-ParZor to resurrect and rebuild its structures and creativity in all fields with the Paris deep reverence for the elements of nature, which ultimately deals with the climate crisis. These efforts to save the Parsi community from ultimate extinction is outstanding.

Rita Farhat Mukand is an independent writer and author.