Pious Citizens: Reforming Zoroastrianism in India and Iran

1. Bombay and Murmurs of Reform: Religion as “Civilization” and “Progress"

30 1 Bombay and Murmurs of Reform Religion as “Civilization” and “Progress” We want the English language, English manners, and English behaviour for our wives and daughters, and until these are supplied, it is but just that the present gulf between the Englishman and the Indian should remain as wide as ever. —Statement by the Parsee Society, 1863 The Parsi community in India initiated reforms in the nineteenth century largely as a result of British impact in the region. The rise of Bombay as the premier port on the western littoral and the unique relationship between the British and the Parsis in that city had profound effects on the Zoroastrian community itself and on their attitude toward society, tradition, and religion. A powerful Parsi merchant class developed and assumed community leadership. British secularization policies, together with the political and economic incentives to adopt British education and cultural sensibilities, lent a particular character to the Parsi community in Bombay. The British-style schools established in Bombay emerged as breeding grounds for the first generation of Parsi reformers. The powerful connection between “civilization” and European knowledge and forms of religion that guided British education led to the inseparability of social and religious reform. The Rise of Bombay The Zoroastrian Parsi community was fundamentally transformed by increasing British involvement in India over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leadership of the community passed to the new class of large merchants , and the Parsis became deeply associated with British commercial and Bombay and Murmurs of Reform | 31 political interests. Their close relationship also led to the adoption of British notions of modernity, “enlightened” religion, and social reform agendas. These changes spawned the Zoroastrian reform movement. From the outset, the emergence of Bombay as a leading commercial center in India was intimately tied to both British rule of the island and the relationship between the British and the Zoroastrian merchant community that emigrated there.1 Bombay’s harbor and potential as a trading hub were noted by the very first British visitor to India, the Jesuit priest Thomas Stephens in 1579.2 Nearly a century later, in 1662, Bombay was acquired from the Portuguese.3 Increased British control over the area catapulted Bombay into a leading commercial center in India beginning in the 1730s.4 Bombay, as the only city virtually “created” by the British in India, was unique.5 In addition to the commercial opportunities in this new port city, Bombay offered religious neutrality and the practice of legal impartiality, something rare on the mainland, particularly in Portuguese-controlled territory.6 Bombay was a destination for those fleeing the insecurity of the mainland.7 The British policy of religious neutrality often in practice connoted tolerance. For example, in 1792 as a result of complaints by the Parsi community of British intrusion into a burial site, the East India Company threatened to expel anyone from “the Honourable Company’s service” who failed to respect local religious customs.8 As minorities in Indian society, the Parsis were not closely associated with the Indian ruling classes and were profoundly attracted by British-controlled Bombay. Parsis allied themselves with the British government in India in order to protect themselves from local Indian rulers. Many Parsis worked for the British , sometimes even becoming British subjects. As astutely pointed out by John Hinnells, the attraction was mutual: “It was not only the Parsis who respected the British but the British also respected the Parsis because in them they saw, in a strange and foreign land, people who shared similar morals, principles, and even a physical similarity.”9 This mutual regard intensified as a result of Parsis’ adoption of Western customs. The Europeanization of Parsis was frequently remarked upon by travelers. Lieutenant Moore, writing in 1794, commented: Some of them have two or three country houses, furnished in all the extravagance of European taste; with elegant and extensive gardens, where European gentlemen are frequently invited, and where they are always welcome to 32 | Pious Citizens entertain their own private parties. . . . [W]e have seen Parsee merchants give balls, suppers, and entertainments to the whole settlement; and some of them ride in English chariots. . . . The Parsees have been often known to behave to English gentlemen, respecting pecuniary concerns, in a manner highly liberal . . . . A Parsee beggar was never known; and their women, who are fair as Europeans, are proverbially chaste; so that a harlot is as rare as...