MUMBAI: Sewage water flooding the complex of 119-year-old Fire Temple in Hyderabad has galvanized the minuscule Parsi community with appeals and signature campaigns to government agencies from organisations and individuals across the country.
In Mumbai, the over 360-year-old Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP), which represents the interests of the Parsi-Irani community in India, has written to Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao and Union minister of minority affairs, Smriti Irani, urging them to protect the sanctity of the Bai Maneekbai Nusserwanji Chenoy Dar-E-Meher (fire temple) situated at Tilak Road in Hyderabad.
The BPP trustees said the heritage building which houses the fire temple since October 16, 1904, shares a common wall with a roadside eatery (Dhabha), which came up about two decades ago.
Since March 2022, the powerful owners of the Dhaba decided to concretize the kitchen attached to their roadside eatery, which was until then, illegally constructed above the sewage line of the Fire Temple compound. As a part of their construction, they surreptitiously, unilaterally and without authorization blocked the century-old sewage pipe-line that until then serviced and carried the sewage water from the ‘Dar-E-Meher’ and its neighbouring residential colony which houses 45 Zoroastrian families," said the BPP letter.
The letter said the dirty sewage water is unable to pass through and therefore back-flows into the holy Fire Temple complex. "It has thoroughly contaminated the water of our holy well which is situated in the Fire Temple complex. The well water which to us is cardinal to the performance of our Zoroastrian-Parsi-Irani religious ceremonies, its contamination has thus deeply hurt the religious sentiments of all the members of our community in India & abroad," it said.
The 45 families living in the adjacent housing complex have been living in conditions of "utter filth" due to the mess created by the backward flow of the sewage water causing health and hygiene-related issues, particularly for the old people and young children staying in the complex.
"Our efforts to approach local authorities to resolve this issue have failed. On behalf of the Parsi-Irani-Zoroastrian community of India collectively, we humbly pray and now approach you to kindly intervene in the matter and help resolve this issue amicably so that the religious sentiments of the members of our community in India & abroad are duty addressed and assuaged," said the BPP.
Hyderabad-based community activist Jehangir Bisney recently initiated a signature campaign addressed to the MD of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board. "Besides being a place of historical, cultural and architectural significance (it was recognized with the HUDA Heritage Building Award in 2001); more importantly, this 119-year-old Agiary housed a consecrated fire which is the source of veneration and worship for the Parsi community residing in Hyderabad & Secunderabad," it said.
"The spiritual stature of the Agiary and the health and lives of the residents have been badly compromised since 2022 when their sewage line, laid over a century ago, was intentionally and unlawfully blocked by Santosh Dhaba, which shares the compound wall. The outlet having been blocked, the sewage water flows right back into the compound of the Agiary, polluting the well water, besides posing a serious health hazard to the residents."
"Concerned individuals have been forced to raise the matter in the courts of law. While HMWSSB has committed to clearing the sewage by sending tankers, that definitely is not a solution to the problem. The municipal authorities are duty-bound to provide adequate civic amenities to residents on a daily basis. Towards that end, you are urged to do all in your power to stop this health hazard and enforce upon Santosh Dhaba to clear the blocked sewage system to allow free outlet. That is within your sphere of authority," said the letter, signed by over 2,600 people.
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