Mumbai: Union minister for parliamentary affairs and minority affairs Kiren Rijiju said at a function in Mumbai on Saturday that Parsis are the only minority community that never sought financial aid from the govt. While the minister’s comment was well received by a largely Parsi audience, community members said the ground reality is different.The public perception is that the micro-minority community is affluent and, hence, does not seek favours from the govt. But large sections of the roughly 57,000-strong Parsi-Irani Zoroastrian community in India are lower income and middle-class, and some segments are at poverty levels, mainly in rural areas.“It is a reality that even a community with one of the highest per capita incomes still has poverty within it. Many community members survive on assistance from charitable trusts and regularly seek support, particularly for medical and educational needs,” said Anahita Desai, trustee of Bombay Parsi Punchayet.Dinshaw Tamboly of World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust Funds said a 2009 Tata Institute of Social Sciences report found that the community faces increasing economic vulnerability. “Contrary to general belief, this study reveals that there is a small fraction of the community which exists even below the poverty line, as per the official definition of poverty,” he said. According to him, major sources of support are concentrated in Greater Mumbai and other urban areas and only a few organisations have gone to rural areas in remote parts of Gujarat. “There is a need to review doles given as a means of poverty relief. Several families can be assisted to move beyond the margins of poverty if at least one member in the working age group can be helped to take up vocational education or to pursue a professional course to get into a job early,” he said.Tamboly said many families do not have a single member in the working age group. “There is an urgent need to review the modalities of disbursing doles for families in this group. Assistance for daily maintenance is too meagre and has only a nominal value,” he added.Developer Boman Irani of Rustomjee Group suggested a census through all homes ensuring that the data collected reflects the true financial situation, health issues and monthly medication/living needs. “We need immediate identification of vulnerable families and stronger medical and emergency support systems, ensuring that senior citizens and children get basic care and financial security. Once we identify the less fortunate, we need to guide them so that they are capable of helping themselves. The structure we create can provide basic aid and required health insurance to all,” he said.Irani said multiple factors led to the current situation —a declining population, ageing demographics, rising urban costs, unemployment or underemployment among some youth, and the erosion of the traditional joint family. “Poverty in our community is often invisible because people hesitate to ask for help openly.”Zerick Dastur, India president of World Zoroastrian Chamber of Commerce, said while extending medical aid and financial assistance through charitable trusts is important, the only real long-term solution is by investing in the future. “The key consideration for alleviation of poverty for any community is to create opportunities for the youth and to give them a platform to forge their career paths and build their own future. This includes measures like investing in education, training and skill development. Funding through charitable trusts for higher education, creating internship opportunities for the youth where they can get on-ground experience into the workings of any business, profession or service are some of the measures which can be implemented and which we have been implementing through our community trusts and institutions,” he said.
