Dear Readers,

As an educated and seemingly progressive community, we have strong opinions. But sometimes, our obsession for voicing our opinions tends to blur the line between expressing our opinions and imposing these on those who don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with us.

Given, that for the most part, when these become a public spectacle on social media, they can be entertaining – after all, we pride ourselves as a people who can laugh at our own selves. But when religion becomes part of this mix, it’s sad. Differences of opinion on religious matters in a community have always been its undoing, taking a massive toll on its most integral aspect – unity. The unwillingness of the so-called educated to ‘agree to disagree’, is as appalling as it is unfortunate.

Both, the traditional-minded and their more liberal counterparts, don their holier-than-thou garbs of ‘protecting the religion’. It’s paradoxical when something as private as religion, becomes the central topic of intense community debate. Religion is an individual’s journey which helps achieve one’s destined divinity. It lights up our path, steering us towards spiritual evolution, so we can realise the wisdom and the truth, that is Ahura Mazda. That it metamorphoses into a destructive force which punctures a Community’s unity, causing intense distress and anger against those with differing opinions, is beyond the realms of everything that our glorious Zoroastrian religion stands for.

We are often privy to such outbursts, especially across social media platforms. To think Zoroastrianism needs ‘defending’ – or that anyone can truly defile its sanctity by instigative or mediocre agendas – is seriously undermining the glory and power of our religion. All it shows is your lack of knowledge about our history, and worse, the lack of faith in your religion. Zoroastrianism has been around for millenniums, it’s survived cataclysmic events across centuries, nations and people. Parsis, on the other hand, are just a few-centuries-old race, blessed to be born into one of the world’s oldest religions. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves to think we are its ‘protectors’! It’s our clan that’s on the Endangered List due to our dwindling numbers. So, who really needs the ‘protecting’?

Zoroastrianism has, and will continue to survive and thrive. We, on the other hand, may not. So, maybe, instead of making a brouhaha and turning on each other, with our self-obsessed claims of being its ‘protectors’, how about we start practicing the fundamentals as laid down by our holy Prophet? How about we try to live our religion based on its amazing tenets, so we can become the good (and hopefully wise) Zoroastrians that we were meant to be!

– Anahita