IVF SCHEME GIVES HOPE TO PARSIS

But govt’s effort to boost dwindling population is courting controversy

MUMBAI

For Aspi and Persis Kamakhan — from here, where most of India’s 57,000-odd Parsis live — it represented a unique opportunity to have a child after trying to conceive for 12 years.

“We had lost hope, but Jiyo Parsi was a big blessing and completely changed our lives,” said Persis, 38, now mother to a 3year-old girl.

Parsis are Zoroastrians who first arrived in the country more than 1,000 years ago after fleeing persecution in Persia. They follow the teachings of the ancient Prophet Zoroaster and worship in fire temples.

The group flourished under British colonial rule and became one of India’s wealthiest and most powerful communities, boasting a number of famous industrialists, including the Tata, Wadia and Godrej families.

But their population had been dwindling for decades. Across India, where the majority of the world’s Zoroastrians reside, their numbers had halved since 1940. At the last census in 2011, 57,264 Parsis were recorded in India.

The population slide had led to warnings that the community’s very existence is under threat. So, in 2013, the government started Jiyo Parsi, meaning Live Parsi in Hindi.

“Jiyo Parsi has two fundamental purposes — first to arrest the decline of Parsis, and second to increase their population,” said Katy Gandevia, who counselled prospective parents on the programme.

The scheme provided financial assistance ranging from 50 to 100 per cent of the cost of IVF, depending on the combined annual salary of the couple, a lifeline for those desperate for a baby but short of funds.

It is run in partnership with the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, Mumbai’s leading Parsi organisation, a non-governmental organisation called the Parzor Foundation and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

For Shernaz Cama, the founder of Parzor, every baby born offered a glimmer of hope that the group would survive.

“We have had 120 births in four years. The programme has increased the number of Parsi babies born every year by 18 per cent,” she said.

Largely well-educated and welloff, Parsis tended to marry late, or not all, and had smaller families. Pressure from conservatives for Parsis to marry within the closed community had reduced the pool of possible partners and led many to wed out of the traditionally fold.

Reformists, meanwhile, blamed a rule that barred the children of women who marry outside the community from places of worship. By comparison, if a man wedded outside the community, then his children were still considered Parsi.

“Welcoming these children into the fold should have been the most obvious solution to increasing community numbers. Instead these children and their parents are being shunned,” said Simin Patel, a Parsi who opposed the programme.

The historian, who wrote an online blog about Mumbai entitled “Bombaywalla”, accused the government of supporting a programme of “selective racial breeding”.

“The Jiyo Parsi scheme is a telling example of how the theories and programmes of eugenics are still being practised in the present day,” she said.

Some in the community have also criticised recent posters advertising the programme’s second phase, accusing them of being elitist, patriarchal and of stigmatising childless women.

One poster showed a man sitting on a chair with the caption: “After your parents, you’ll inherit the family home. After you, your servant will.” Another read: “Be Responsible — don’t use a condom tonight.”

“These ads reflect a sense of entitlement, are regressive and instead of empowering Parsi women, drag us back into the dark ages,” said Pervin Sanghvi, a local Parsi.

Two Parsis die in the city here on average every day. For every four passing away, only one baby was born, according to Pearl Mistry, Jiyo Parsi’s coordinator.

The numbers suggest the programme itself would not be enough to save the community.

“Couples say that Jiyo Parsi is a ray of hope at the end of a long and dark tunnel, and we cling to that,” said Mistry. AFP