Parsi woman wins right to enter temple

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, December 14

A Parsi woman on Thursday secured the right to enter Zoroastrian fire temple despite being married to a man from a different religion, an act that traditionally deprived her of many rights in the community.

The Parsi Anjuman Trust, Valsad, Gujarat, submitted an undertaking to this effect before the Supreme Court during hearing of a petition filed by Goolrokh M Gupta, a Parsi woman married a Hindu man.

The trust told a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that Goolrokh and her sister, who have married outside the community, can visit the “Tower of Silence” and attend prayers in the event of the death of their parents.

The tower is used for funeral by the followers of the Zoroastrian faith, in which the traditional practice for disposal of the dead involves the exposure of the corpse to the sun and vultures.

The sisters can enter the temple even for prayers, senior counsel Gopal Subramanium told the Bench on behalf of the trust.

The Bench, however, made it clear that the constitutional issue of gender bias in the practice and the issues arising out of the Gujarat High Court’s verdict that a woman automatically gets converted to her husband’s religion after marriage would be taken up on January 17 next year.

“It is agreed and declared between the petitioner and respondent (trust) that the respondent will, on compassionate grounds, permit the petitioner to attend the funeral prayers (Paldust ceremony) of her parents performed inside the prayer hall of the Bungli (bunglow) of the Tower of Silence complex (Doongerwadi) complex at Valsad,” the trust said in a two-page note.