Zoroastrian and Parsi Studies

Selected Works of John R.Hinnells

John Hinnells

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138738652
• eBook ISBN: 9781351731751
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000:  This volume collects articles from 30 years of John R. Hinnell's writings. The selection is intended to balance the different areas in which he has worked: the ancient tradition and its influence on Biblical imagery; Parsi history; the living religion; and diaspora communities.

Section C
Parsi History

5 Introduction

Chapters 6-8 were originally delivered as the Government Research Fellowship Lectures at the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, Bombay. There have been a number of studies of the early history of Bombay since the publication of these lectures. One of the areas of study has been British trade in Surat in the seventeenth century,¹ although little has been done on the Parsi role there. There have been two valuable studies of a leading Parsi family from Surat, Rustam Maneck Seth, a major broker who had sufficient influence to gain access to the Muslim court in Delhi for British traders. The first of these studies was a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia written by David L. White,² which makes good use of western sources in particular (East India Compatiy material for example); the later study by Eduljee is stronger on the Indian sources, though the latter appears not to have known of White's thesis.³ White's work corrects some of the work undertaken much earlier by Sir J. J. Modi.⁴

Perhaps the biggest single development in the history of western India in the seventeenth century is the mcreased use of Portuguese sources,⁵ but thus far the only use made of these in Parsi studies is a 1930s publication on Rustom Maneck (used by White and Eduljee). Similarly neglected thus far in Parsi studies, White apart, are the annals of the East India Company. There are, therefore, vast areas for future research. A useful volume on pravate trade, an area where Parsis were important as middlemen, was published by Watson.⁶ Dossal has produced an interesting volume on the planning of Bombay city in the mid-nineteenth century. Although it is not directly on Parsis, it is of relevance because much of the planning, finance, health, docks and railways were concerns in which Parsis were involved.⁷ A biography has been written of a leading Parsi banker, Pochkhanawals⁷ More popular works on early Bombay, each of which includes some material on the Parsis, are by Gillian Tyndall,⁹ and two recent large coffee table books (in appearance) but which include some useful material, much visual, of the early period, including sites of Parsi interest.¹⁰

There have been three important publications on the subject of the western travellers m the region. The first two, Guha¹¹ and Ball,¹² are publications of individual travellers' accounts: Ovington in Guha vol. I, Thevenot and Careri in Guha vol. II; Tavernier in Ball. Firby's book is an extensive and critical assessment of almost forty seventeenth and eighteenth century European travellers' perceptions of Zoroastrians both in Iran and India.¹³ This was originally submitted as a postgraduate thesis at Manchester University and provides valuable historical insights. There is no obvious area for further research in the area so ably covered by Firby.

The subject of Parsis and western education has hardly been addressed since the publication of this ch. 8. Two useful nineteenth century publications mentioned in ch. 9, Menant and Murzban, have been reprinted, but as reprints they do not add to knowledge already available.¹⁴ Ramanna has published a synthesis of the biography of the first Parsi woman to go to school, Dosabai Jessawalla, a biography used in ch. 8. (JCOl, 61, 1997, pp. 1-16) There are two or three individuals currently working on the Revd. John Wilson, but nothing has thus far emerged in print.

The main publication on social change in Bombay at the turn of the nineteenth twentieth centuries is the proceedings of a Bombay seminar organised by Professor Nawaz Mody, with chapters on Parsi social and political reformers (including the hitherto neglected Madame Cama) and Parsi contribution to diverse branches of the arts.¹⁵ There have been two studies of major Parsi industries, the Tatas¹⁶ and the Godrej industries,¹⁷ and one of a major Trust.¹⁸ There have been relatively few biographies written, but an interesting exception to that is the memoires of the scion of the Marker family in Quetta ¹⁹ Kekobad A. Marker was a major figure in the politics of Sind in the first half of the nineteenth century, a man deeply concerned for his co-religionists in Iran, among whom he engaged in much philanthropy. Several books have been produced on the subject of political change, and the Parsi place m that. The literature on the growth of the Indian National Congress is far too vast to be comprehensively covered in this short introduction, so only those books which relate to Parsi affairs will be referred to, scholars interested in other aspects of these political movements will inevitably see major gaps in the following references. Jones ' work on socio-religious movements is an important work, but the material on the Parsis (pp. 145-50) is small.²⁰ Chandra's work on the Independence movement has useful material on the Parsis, but the three major authors from a Parsi historian's perspective are Dobbin, Mehrotra²¹ and Masserlos,²² each of whom pay particular attention to Bombay, and hence the Parsis.

There have been a number of publications on Parsi politicians, two on Pherozeshah Mehta,²³ several on Dadabhai Naoroji.²⁴ Bhownagree was the focus of a joint study Hinnells and Ralph at the centennial anniversary of his election as an MP.²⁵ But the Parsi M.P. to have most written of him in recent times is the Labour, then Communist, M.P. Saklatvala.²⁶ The main ones are very different. Squires and Wadsworth are political biographies, Sehri Saklatvala is a very personal account of her father. Saklatvala, like Bhownagree, has fared badly at the hands of historians, especially within the Parsi community. Bhownagree has been dismissed as overly compliant with the British government, and Saklatvala was caricatured as a hypocrite, attacking capitalism while living on Tata money (he was a member of the family and had worked for the firm). The various studies have shown these caricatures to be false - and the stories became neatly interwoven as the Tory and the Communist MPs at the end of their lives established friendly relations after years of dispute.

There have been further studies of the more modern period, but that takes us beyond the scope of the chapters in these collected works and will be the subject of future publications.²⁷

1. In chronological order of appearance: V. Chavda, A Select Bibliography of Gujarat, its history and culture 1600 - 1857, Ahmedabad, 1972; O.P. Singh, Surat and its trade in the second half of the 17^th century, Delhi, 1977; B. G. Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, London, 1979; A. Das Gupta Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat 1700-1750, Wiesbaden, 1994.

2. Parsis as Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth Century Western India: the Rustum Manock Family and the Parsi Community of Bombay, University Microfilms International, 1979.

3. H. E. Eduljee, 'Rustam Maneck and His Sons, Brokers of Surat,' Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, (JCOI) 60, 1995, pp. 1-90.

4. See especially 'Rustom Manock (1635-1721 AC). The Broker of the English East India Company (1699AC) and the Persian Qisseh (History) of Rustam Manock: a study', in Modi's Asiatic Papers, IV, 1929, pp. 101-320.

5. Μ. Ν. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: the response to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, Berkeley, 1976; C. R. Boxer, Portuguese India in the mid-seventeenth century, Bombay, 1980; Pearson, Coastal Western India: studies from the Portuguese records, Delhi, 1981; Pearson, The Portuguese in India, Cambridge History of India, I.i, 1987; S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700, London, 1993.

6. I. B. Watson, Foundation for Empire, English private trade in India 1659-1760, Delhi, Ì980.

7. M. Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Cities: the planning of Bombay city 1845-1875, Bombay, 1991.

8. N. J. Nanporia, Pochkhanawala the banker, Bombay, 1981.

9. Tindall, City of Gold: the biography of Bombay, London, 1982.

10. S. Dwivedi and R. Mehrotra, Bombay, the Cities within, Bombay, 1995; P. Rohatgi, P. Godrej and R. Mehrotra Bombay, Bombay 1997.

11. J. P. Guha, India in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols., Delhi, 1976.

12. V. Ball, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's Travels in India, edited by W. Crooke, Delhi, 1977.

13. European Travellers and their Perceptions of Zoroastrians in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, Berlin, 1988.

14. D. Menant, Les Parsis, Paris 1898, repr. Osnabrück, 1975 (ch. 7 on education); M. M. Murzban, The Parsis, Bombay, 1917, repr. Bombay, 1995. Vol. III, ch. 7 is on education.

15. Ν. B. Mody (ed.), The Parsis in Western India: 1818-1920, Bombay, 1998.

16. R. M. Lala, The Creation of Wealth, Bombay, 1981,

17. B. K. Karanjia, Godrej: a hundred years 1897-1997, Delhi, 1997 (2 vols).

18. R. M. Lala, The Heartbeat of a Trust: fifty years of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Bombay, 1984 (2 vols).

19. K. A. Marker, A Petal from the Rose, Karachi, 1984.

20. K. W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, Cambridge History of India, III.i, 1989. He writes about the Rahnumai Mazdyasnan Sabha.

21. Urban Leadership in Western India: politics and communities in Bombay City 1840-1885, Oxford, 1972. See also S.R. Mehrotra, Towards India's Freedom and Partition, Delhi, 1979.

22. J. Masselos, Towards Nationalism: public institutions and urban politics in the nineteenth century, Bombay, 1974; Masselos, Indian Nationalism, London, 1986.

23. S. R. Bakshi, Pherozeshah Mehta: socio-political ideology, Delhi, 1991 and N. B. Mody (ed.) Pherozeshah Mehta: maker of modem India, Bombay, 1997.

24. Of particular importance is R. P. Patwardhan, Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence Vol. II parts 1 & 2, Bombay 1977. Unfortunately these volumes are letters to Naoroji, the vol. I on letters from Naroji has not been published. Around 1992, the centennial anniversary of his election to Parliament, saw the publication of several works in his honour, e.g. Z. Gifford, Dadabhai Naoroji: Britain's first Asian M.P., London 1992; Dipanjali (magazine of the Delhi Parsi Anjuman), Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial Issue, Delhi, 1992; F. Vajifdar, The Twist in the Rope: a study of the Patriot Dadabhai Naoroji, London, 1992 and later O. Ralph, Naoroji: the first Asian M.P., Antigua, 1997. There is also a study of Naoroji in parliament, and as leader of the London Zoroastrian community, in J. R. Hinnells, Zoroastrians in Britain, Oxford, 1996.

25. J. R. Hinnells and O. Ralph, Bhownagree: Member of Parliament: 1895-1906, London, 1995. This text was subsequently amended, in parts corrected, and elaborated by Hinnells in JCOI and is included below.

26. In chronological order these are: C. Hancock, 'The Life and Works of Shapurji Saklatvala', JCOI, 1990, 1-82; M. Squires, Saklatvala: a political biography, London, 1990; Sehri Saklatvala, The Fifth Commandment, Salford, 1992; Hinnells, Zoroastrians in Britain, 1996, and M. Wadsworth, Comrade Sak: Shapurji Saklatvala MP: a political biography, London, 1998.

27. The High Priest Dastur Dr K.M. JamaspAsa and I are working on a History of the Parsis in British India, and I hope in the next year to bring out a study of the Parsis in the diaspora in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• General Introduction
• Section A. Theory and Method in Zoroastrian Studies
• Section Β. Zoroastrian Influence on Biblical Imagery
• Section C. Parsi History
• Section D. Zoroastrianism and the Parsis
• Section E. The Parsi Diaspora