IVF gives hope to Parsis
Controversial scheme aims to help save India’s dwindling community
MUMBAI: A government-funded IVF programme that aims to help save India’s shrinking Parsi community from extinction is delivering bundles of joy and controversy.
Some 120 children have been born through the “Jiyo Parsi” fertility initiative since it was launched four years ago in a bid to help reverse a dramatic decline in India’s Zoroastrian population.
The programme, which provides Parsi couples with free in-vitro fertilisation treatment, has been hailed a success by many in the influential community.
But critics say the scheme, which has also seen the launch of an advertising campaign effectively damning Parsis that are not having children, amounts to selective procreation and reinforces orthodox Zoroastrians views that Parsis should only have children with each other.
For Aspi and Persis Kamakhan – from Mumbai, where most of India’s 57,000-odd Parsis live – it represented a unique opportunity to have a child after trying to conceive for twelve years.
“We had lost all hope but Jiyo Parsi was a big blessing and completely changed our lives,” 38-yearold Persis, now mother to a threeyear-old girl, said.
Parsis are Zoroastrians who first arrived in India 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 has been dwindling for decades. Across India, where the majority of the world’s Zoroastrians reside, their numbers have halved since 1940. At the last census, in 2011, 57,264 Parsis were recorded in India.
The population slide has led to warnings that the community’s very existence is under threat.
So in 2013 the Indian 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,” Katy Gandevia, who counsels prospective parents on the programme, said.
The scheme provides financial assistance ranging from 50 to 100% 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 community NGO called the Parzor Foundation and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
For Shernaz Cama, the founder of Parzor, every baby born offers a glimmer of hope that the group will survive long into the future.
“We have had 120 births in four years. The programme has increased the number of Parsi babies born every year by 18%,” she said.
Largely well-educated and welloff, Parsis have tended to marry late, or not all, and have smaller families than other Indian communities, factors that have been blamed for contributing to the low birth rate.
Pressure from conservatives for Parsis to marry within the closed community have reduced the pool of possible partners and led many to wed out of the traditional fold, demographers also say.
Reformists, meanwhile, blame a rule that bars the children of women who marry outside the community from places of worship.
By comparison, if a man weds outside the community then his children are still considered Parsi.