Not Universal if not United.

The Iranis, a group of Zoroastrians who emigrated to India a hundred years ago, were met with suspicion and hesitant acceptance by their thousand-year-old brethren, the Parsis, to whom, they were a mixed bunch of plausible converts that followed a different calendar. To the Zoroastrian posterity, the very distinction would've sounded alien, but surely they can imagine how they would've taken the initial divide of which wisps still remain?

In an unsurprising eadem, sed aliter, we see the locus shift to another group- the converts and those of only maternal Zoroastrian ancestry in mixed marriages, who somehow according to tradition shouldn't belong to the good religion.

I have come across many Kurds and Iranians conveying their crushed hopes of being accepted by many of us, not only in India, or online, but even Internationally. Why do we call ourselves the champions of progress when we wish to keep such exclusivity? In no way does this mean that the ethnoreligious aspect should not be preserved; it is our right to preserve it, however, what I am suggesting is, the coherence of people from different walks of life, being united by one belief, one mentality of action.

Religion has, firstly, always been a matter of politics (which cannot be judged as either good or bad). The Kurds, having suffered by the hands of others for generations, wished to revert to their ancient identity. Granted, a lot of the myths and claims revolving around the Kurds and Zoroastrianism might be more of a later invention, but we see such localisation in every religion. A Copt would have to go no further than Jerusalem and Bethlehem to find Jesus. An Orthodox Greek would've been brought up with stories of Mary visiting Greece. A Protestant, Catholic, with augmented stories of thousands of saints all over the world. Why then, would it be any different for Kurds to foster beliefs that strengthen their connection to Zoroastrianism when even the Parsis and Iranis are full of them? The pattern remains, nonetheless.

I was at first against those who wished to convert solely because of nationalistic motives, or the fact that they simply hated their current religious identity. After speaking to Darius, I realised that the ones who really do want to convert may have had their journeys sparked by an identity crisis or the sort, but have studied the faith well enough to make an informed decision. We must be proud that this is the generation that will be preserving a faith which miraculously is taking its place back in the middle east as it dies out in India.

Criticism is indeed the panacea of all progress, I do not deny that, but to an outsider, criticism is often mistaken for rejection. We must then at least find a way to help our brethren, no matter what, to feel like they've finally found their place in this already polarised world. No more pointing fingers if we are to keep this legacy alive.

(Picture by Piran Irani)