Why should a woman keep changing her faith, asks Parsi married to Marwari man

A thought has been nagging Goolrookh Gupta, a Parsi married to a non-Parsi. And it is, why a woman alone should keep changing her faith each time she marries. The question cropped up when an Anjuman (a Parsi body) in Valsad, Gujarat, from where her parents hail and live, made a resolution, prohibiting Parsi women married outside the community from entering fire temples or the Tower of Silence.

"It is a question that keeps nagging me. If tomorrow a woman marries and does not get along with her husband and has to remarry someone who belongs to some third faith, is she supposed to keep changing her faith as per her husband's? Why should a woman alone do that?" asked Gupta, who married a Marwari man in the 1990s, when she was in town for studies.

Valsad Parsi Anjuman Trust Funds took this decision in 2004, she said. "Till 2003, they were fine. With a change in management, they suddenly decided to not allow women married outside community into fire temples.

Instead of moving ahead with times, they went back. It is not that all cities and all Anjumans have the same opinion. In Karachi, they recently allowed children of inter-faith marriages to enter fire temple. Our constitution says a person is allowed to profess and preach (his/her) own religion, but here, we are not allowed to follow it. The prime minister talks of women empowerment but look at us," said the 49-year-old, who lives in Mahalaxmi with her family.

Gupta's PIL is not in the Supreme Court and has been posted for hearing several times on different but is yet to be heard.

President and managing trustee of the Valsad Parsi Anjuman Trust Funds Sam Chotia said, "The resolution was passed in 2001 in a general body, not in 2004. A board of trust cannot act contrary to what the general body has passed. We did that as per our customs, traditions and advice from the high priests. It was also the wish of the settler (one who donated the fire temple) to not allow trespassers."