The Times of India
Parsis, pandas & procreation
Farrukh Dhondy | Nov 16, 2014, 06.17 AM IST
The provocative new ad campaign to save the Parsi species simply doesn't add up.
So we Parsis -yes I'm 100% on both parental sides with no racial dilution since Darius conquered Egypt -are to be treated as pandas with a sense of humour? The Commission for Minorities' allocation of Rs 10 crore to get Parsis to procreate and thus save the race and the religion, the latter being restricted in India to the former, is very welcome. It will, and has produced some piquant tongue-in-cheek advertisements, ribald jokes, ironic comments and spirited debate. What it won't produce is the number of Parsi babies to save the race from extinction in a generation or two.
Yes tigers, pandas, even Parsi-eating vultures and Parsis need concerted campaigns to survive as a species.Most campaigns to control human birth, such as the Chinese one-baby rule, aim to shrink the population rather than expand it. Our own Sanjay Gandhi (or apro Sanjay , a Parsi born of a Parsi Zoroastrian father) had his own draconian scheme to sterilize the population of the country . Could he have, even subconsciously been motivated to readjust the ratio of Parsis to non-Parsis? Perhaps not. I remember the `prasav na' ads urging the populace not to procreate. Now we have clever ads aimed at the Parsi men who won't leave mummy and at the Parsi girl who is choosy and single.
They won't work. Before wasting money on this noble but hopeless campaign the minority-wallas should have hired a statistician to do some sums which I am now about to do for them. Let's face two numerical facts: There are now 68,000 Parsis left and for every 200 births a year, the community suffers 800 deaths.
Of the 68,000, let's say half are women and a third of this half or a little more are of child-bearing age.That leaves us with approximately 12,000 women who are, ignoring any infertility , able to make babies. There is no way to calculate how many are willing to so do, but the 200 births a year indicate that less than 1% of the 12,000 are getting on with it. Let's imagine that the ad campaign manages to tackle this dearth or reluctance. Let's imagine that it quadruples the birth rate! We would still have 800 babies a year balancing 800 deaths. The numbers would be at a standstill.
Imagine that the campaign was infinitely successful and all the women able to procreate gave birth to a baby and so there were 12,000 new Parsis in the first year. If they continued to each produce a baby for let's say 15 years, we would have 180,000 new Parsis by and by . Hurray! But the campaign, the community and the law assume monogamy and it is highly unlikely that any modern woman would want to give birth to a child a year or any of this Facebook and selfie generation would want to bring up 15 children.
At this point I have to tell you that my maternal great grandmother had 17 children -two girls and 15 boys in a monogamous marriage. Only three of these, the two girls and one boy , given the medical and social circumstances of the time survived into adulthood.
My daughters and nieces would, I know, rather join ISIS in Syria than become Parsi baby-making machines like my poor great grandmother. Even if the ads and social pressures succeed in persuading those critical 12,000 to go some of the way, we are not likely in their child-bearing years to get more than three or perhaps four children each from perhaps 4,000 of them. So in those 15 years we will have 12,000 new Parsis and 12,000 deaths. Back to square one.
The ad campaign is not in vain. It has begun a humorous debate but, as my statistics prove, it only means we'll die laughing.
So, as Lenin asked at a crucial juncture in his nation's fortunes, `What is to be done?' In the race to settle this question of survival the cart has gone well before the horse. We haven't asked ourselves what it is we want to save. Do we, as one of the ads in the campaign says, want to save Dadar Parsi Colony for Parsis? I can with my poetical training appreciate that the housing estate is being used as a metaphor for the community . Or is it a metaphor for racial exclusiveness? Do we want a community of dhansak eaters to survive or are we anxious, on the principle that without believers there is no belief, that Zoroastrianism will be as extinct as the religion of the Aztecs? Is it racial purity we want to preserve or do we just want a thriving community which shares a religion, rituals, culture and can look back on a history as illustrious, troubled and tragic as any?
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