The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (Also known as Bombay Parsi Panchayat, Bombay Parsi Panchayet or BPP) is the apex body representing the Parsi Zoroastrian Community in Mumbai. BPP was founded in the 1670s. [1] It is a charitable trust and is the city's largest private landlord controlling over 5500 houses meant for lower and middle class members of the Parsi community. [2] It is also the Mumbai's oldest and richest charity. [3]
The trust is the caretaker of Parsi properties in Mumbai such as B.D. Petit Parsee General Hospital, Parsi Lying-in Hospital and Doongerwadi, a 55-acre property housing a Tower of Silence in the city. [4] [5] [6]
BPP is run by a board of trustees which are elected by more than 25,000 Parsi residents of the city. [7]
There have been a number of trustees through the existence of Bombay Parsi Panchayat. For example, in the year 2008, there were 7 trustees who took charge namely Arnavaz Mistry, Dinshaw Mehta, Jimmy Mistry, Khojeste Mistre, Yazdi Desai, Rustom Tirandaz, and Noshir Dadrawala. There were about 22,000 Parsis who registered to vote that year, whilst only 13,500 exercised their franchise. [8] [9]
The Parsis or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire to escape religious persecution. Parsis are the older of the Indian subcontinent's two Zoroastrian communities, the other being the Iranis, whose ancestors migrated to British-ruled India from Qajar-era Iran.
Byculla is an area of South Mumbai.
A dakhma, also known as a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation, in order to avoid contamination of the soil and other natural elements by the decomposing dead bodies. Carrion birds, usually vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and continued breakdown occurs.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey and wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou, and Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film that she wrote and directed.
Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry was an Indian-born Irish billionaire construction tycoon. He was chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and a major shareholder of India's largest private conglomerate, Tata Group.
Bhikhaji Rustom Cama or simply as, Madam Cama, was one of the prominent figures in the Indian independence movement.
The Bombay Tournament was an annual cricket competition held in British India between 1892 and 1946. Until 1936, matches were played on either the Gymkhana Ground in Bombay or the Deccan Gymkhana Ground in Poona, and then at the Brabourne Stadium in Bombay until the tournament was terminated in 1946. The tournament was known variously as the Bombay Presidency Match, Bombay Triangular, Bombay Quadrangular, and Bombay Pentangular, depending on the number of competing teams.
Homi Nusserwanji Sethna was an Indian nuclear scientist and a chemical engineer, gaining international fame as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (India) during the time when the first nuclear test, codename Smiling Buddha in Pokhran Test Range in 1974 was conducted. He was the primary and central figure in India's civilian nuclear program as well as the construction of nuclear power plants. In 1991, he was appointed as Sheriff of Mumbai.
Dadar Parsi Colony is an upper class Parsi colony in midtown South Mumbai. It is situated in the locality of Dadar-Matunga. Unlike the other Parsi colonies it is not surrounded by a wall or fence and is not isolated from its surroundings. The colony houses the famous Five Gardens created by Mancherji Joshi, a renowned Parsi.
Jamshedji Sorab Kukadaru was a Zoroastrian priest in Mumbai, India. He was revered by Zoroastrians for a number of miracles he is believed to have performed. He was well known by his contemporaries for his simple lifestyle and asceticism, as well as his unflinching adherence to priestly purity rules. Most of his life is said to have been spent in prayer.
Cyrus Pallonji Mistry was an Indian born Irish businessman. He was the chairman of the Tata Group, an Indian business conglomerate, from 2012 to 2016. He was the sixth chairman of the group, and only the second not to bear the surname Tata. In mid-2012, he was chosen by a selection panel to head the Tata Group and took charge in December that year. In October 2016, the board of Tata Group's holding company, Tata Sons, voted to remove Mistry from the post of chairman. Former chairman Ratan Tata then returned as interim chairman, and Natarajan Chandrasekaran was named as the new chairman a few months later. However, in December 2019, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) declared the appointment of Chandrasekaran as executive chairman illegal, and restored Mistry. However, the Supreme Court stayed NCLAT's order on 10 January 2020. Mistry had filed a cross-appeal in the court, seeking explanations for anomalies in the NCLAT. However, the Supreme Court upheld his dismissal.
Grant Road is a locality in South Mumbai.
Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion, has been present in India for thousands of years. Though it split into a separate branch, it shares a common origin with Hinduism and other Indian religions, having been derived from the Indo-Iranian religion. Though it was once the majority and official religion of the Iranian nation, Zoroastrianism eventually shifted to the Indian subcontinent in light of the Muslim conquest of Iran, which saw the Rashidun Caliphate annex the Sasanian Empire by 651 CE. Owing to the persecution of Zoroastrians in the post-Sasanian period, a large wave of Iranian migrants fled to India, where they became known as the Parsi people, who now represent India's oldest Zoroastrian community. Later waves of Zoroastrian immigration to India took place over the following centuries, with a spike in the number of these refugees occurring during the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam and again during the reign of the Qajar dynasty, whose persecution of Zoroastrians prompted many to flee to British India, where they became known as the Irani people. Though Zoroastrian, the Parsis and the Iranis are culturally, linguistically, and socially distinct from each other due to their inception in separate periods of migration.
Cyrus Mistry is an Indian author and playwright. He won the 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. He is the brother of author Rohinton Mistry.
Jal Phiroj Clubwala Dar E Meher, popularly known as the Royapuram fire temple, is a Zoroastrian fire temple at Royapuram, Chennai, India. It was built in 1910 and donated to the Madras Parsi Zarthosti Anjuman by philanthropist Phiroj M. Clubwala. The temple is one of the 177 odd fire temples in the world, of which some 150 are in India. It is the only Parsi fire temple in Tamil Nadu and surrounding region, including Puducherry and Kerala. The flame in the temple is burning continuously ever since the temple was built and is stoked five times a day by the priest.
Parsiana is a semi-monthly magazine written in English and published in Bombay for the Zoroastrian community. As of 2019, it was in its 55th year of publication.
The role of women in the Zoroastrian and Parsi communities remains controversial and significant. Gender roles in the community have slowly been evolving as societal norms around them progress.
The Parsi Lying-in Hospital (PLIH), also known as Temulji's Lying-in Hospital, sometimes spelled Tehmulji's Lying-in Hospital, was one of the first maternity hospitals in Bombay. It was co-founded by physician and obstetrician Temulji Bhicaji Nariman in 1887 and completed in 1895. Dwindling numbers of Parsi births in the latter half of the 20th century led to its closure.
B.D. Petit Parsee General Hospital is a hospital in Cumballa Hill, Mumbai.
Cusrow Baug is a Parsi residential colony on Colaba Causeway, Mumbai, India. Its residential blocks were completed between 1934 and 1959. The colony houses a Zoroastrian temple, computer centre, gymnasium, and sports club. It was designed by Claude Batley.