Indian gov't provides free fertility treatments for Parsis

[ttt]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I understanding wanting to preserve a particular ethnic group, but at the same time, India has a huge problem with overpopulation and hundreds of millions of people in terrible poverty. Is this really the best use of resources? 


www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33519145


The Parsis of India are a unique community, but their numbers are declining fast. In an effort to change this, the government is spending $1.5m to encourage them to have more children.
Persis Aspi Kamakhan still cannot believe her luck. She clucks and coos at her baby daughter, Hufriya, as she tries to dress her in a new red outfit.

"She's very mischievous," Kamakhan says proudly. "That thing that I wanted for 11 years of my marriage - finally I got this baby. It's like we were given our very own Kohinoor diamond."
Kamakhan and her husband had spent all their savings on unsuccessful IVF treatment, and had given up hope of having a child. Then she heard about Jiyo Parsi - a government-funded scheme set up to encourage Parsi couples to have bigger families.

Kamakhan got in touch with a gynaecologist associated with the scheme who promised to find out what the problem was and solve it.

"Persis had dealt with a lot of disappointments," says Dr Anita Pandole, recalling their first meeting. "Of course, we counselled her there was no guarantee she would get pregnant. But when she did her first cycle with us, she conceived. First time, first shot."


Hufriya was born in October - one of 30 babies delivered so far with the support of the Jiyo Parsi scheme. Seven of them, like Hufriya, were delivered as a result of fully paid-for fertility treatment - the scheme operates a sliding scale of financial assistance for IVF, depending on a couple's income. A further 17 women are pregnant. The aim is to deliver 200 new Parsi babies over five years.

"It's very gratifying," says Pandole, who is also a Parsi. "We are such a small community that even if there is just one extra Parsi baby, I think it's a good thing."

It's estimated that there are 60,000 Parsis in India - half as many as there were in the 1940s. For every Parsi born, four die. The decline in numbers is blamed on late marriage, no marriage, or mixed marriage with non-Parsis.

So why is the Indian government committing resources to bolstering the Parsi headcount, when the country is struggling to control the size of its population?

"I want them to survive," says the Minister of Minority Affairs, Najma Heptulla. "The Parsis have contributed greatly to India as far as education and industrialisation are concerned. There are many famous names like [industrialists] Tata and Godrej, and they have been distinguished lawyers and politicians too."



Most of India's Parsis live in Mumbai - a city whose statues and buildings pay homage to a glorious past when Parsis were a dominant force as traders and shipbuilders, administrators and wealthy philanthropists.

Some time after the beginning of the 8th Century, a group of Zoroastrians fled religious persecution in Iran, and arrived on India's west coast. They settled in Gujarat - the word Parsi means Persian.
In the 17th Century, they began to migrate to Mumbai, where they built their fire temples, and formed alliances with the British.

The Parsi community is more Westernised than many in India, which is partly why it has shrunk in size. They sometimes delay marriage while they save or wait for a property. And couples began family planning decades ago to ensure they could pay for a good education for their children - which for them is as important for girls as it is for boys. Parsi women are high achievers at work, which often makes them reluctant to marry and start a family at an early age. And being single is socially acceptable - 30% of Parsis never marry.


Anxiety about a disappearing population has intensified a long-running debate about who can be counted as a Parsi. More than a third of Parsis marry non-Parsis. A Parsi man's children will always be Parsi whoever he weds. But if a Parsi woman marries out, her sons and daughters are not deemed Parsi.

Goolrukh Gupta is one of those women. In 1991 she married a Hindu. Until 2003 nobody stopped her from attending a fire temple or the Towers of Silence - the place Parsis consign their dead - in the town of Valsad in Gujarat where her parents live. Now, she says, the local Parsi panchayat, an administrative body, has decided women like her are not welcome at those holy places. Her biggest fear is that she will not be allowed to attend the last rites when her elderly parents die.

"The thought my parents would be no more tomorrow and I would not be allowed to enter is like mentally abusing a woman every second - the thought is very unpleasant for me. We're three sisters married to non-Parsis. So, none of us would be able to attend if this law continues. It's like bullying people - who gives them the right to do that?"


Goolrukh Gupta sees this as sex discrimination and has been fighting it in the courts for five years. She is also critical of the Jiyo Parsi campaign as couples only qualify for assistance if the husband is Parsi.

But for Orthodox Parsis, that is how it should be.

"Sorry as one might feel at a personal level, they need to recognise that if they've chosen to marry out they've broken the rules of the religious customs and practices and there is a price one pays for it," says Khojeste Mistry, a trustee of the Bombay Parsi Panchayet, and founder of Zoroastrian Studies - an organisation dedicated to disseminating information about the religion.

"If we want to preserve the Parsi ethnic identity then marrying out is not the answer. If we turn a blind eye to our kids marrying out, then I do not see Zoroastrianism surviving into the next century. These are the people who are breaking down something we've preserved for 3,500 years - they're destroying the fabric of community existence."

In any case, he says, changing the rules on who is a Parsi will not make much difference to population figures.

"Out of 100 children born to parents of mixed marriage, only one will marry a Parsi. So if the emphasis is on preserving ethnicity, then surely intermarriage and welcoming children from intermarried families is not the answer."

Twenty-four-year-old Ria (not her real name) is a professional Parsi woman searching for a Parsi boyfriend on Mumbai's dating scene. But she says she will look outside the community if no-one suitable turns up.


"Why should one stoop down? If a guy is just sitting on a couch and doing nothing and living off his parents, that's not exactly where you want to be. I would love to marry a Parsi, and that's my first and maybe only preference. But I'm not going to settle for someone who's not doing well in life and who I do not see a happy future with."


Two other young Parsis, Kaizad Deboo and Zeenia Vakil, both looked for a Parsi partner - and found each other. At their wedding on a steamy night in Colaba on the southern tip of Mumbai, hundreds of guests are driven inside by torrential rain. The hubbub is deafening, the waiters move artfully among the crowd with trays of canapes, and the drinkers stand three-deep at the bar.

Upstairs in the function room, Kaizad, who's 34, awaits the arrival of his 30-year-old bride.

"It took me five years to convince her to marry me, because she's far more gorgeous than me," he says.

Both of them work in the airline industry and are based in Dubai. So will they do their bit to halt the decline of the Parsi population - are they planning children?

"Of course, no doubt about it," Kaizad says. "And we start from tonight itself... Just kidding!"

[LadySusan]

Yeah... I'm also not impressed.

"Out of 100 children born to parents of mixed marriage, only one will marry a Parsi. So if the emphasis is on preserving ethnicity, then surely intermarriage and welcoming children from intermarried families is not the answer."

So if all these mixed marriages give such a poor return on investment then maybe no mixed marriages should get that treatment? The focus on sperm is really dumb. They would probably have more luck if they sponsored leadership camps or professional associations for people in their 20's and 30's.

Perhaps, if the Church Elders are sooo concerned about their culture going extinct, they should be encouraging families with children to participate rather than forbidding married women from attending services?

[alleinesein]

Jul 19, 2015 20:17:22 GMT -5 @domerjen said:

I was all ready to defend it as a small amt of money for the sake of saving a community, but then I got to this:

"Anxiety about a disappearing population has intensified a long-running debate about who can be counted as a Parsi. More than a third of Parsis marry non-Parsis. A Parsi man's children will always be Parsi whoever he weds. But if a Parsi woman marries out, her sons and daughters are not deemed Parsi."

Now I'm questioning what I thought they were trying to preserve... a backwards cultural identity based on "marrying in", but only if you are a woman(!) does not seem as worthy. But then I'm judging the culture itself. I know I'm not making much sense, but it makes me feel icky.

The elders of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet are still adhering to a supposed archaic contract that was made back in the 10th century that states that one can be a Parsi only by blood.

"We kept our word we gave to then king Jadi Rana," said Dinshaw Rusi Mehta of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet.

"When we were given asylum in India, we agreed not to convert the locals to our faith. This isn't part of our religion though. It's just a pact we've been following for centuries now."
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/vultures-fate-parsi-sky-burials-uncertain-150401063720435.html

Its been 1000+ years now...the old men running the show need to either wise up and modernize or die off so the younger generation can take steps to save what little is left of their culture.  The elders wont even make an attempt to modernize their sky burial practices to compensate for the fact that there are no longer vultures in Mumbai to dispose of the corpses.  They are the reason why one of the larger green spaces (Malabar Hill) in Mumbai smells like a damn rendering factory.  

I don't blame the Parsi women for looking outside of their community for a husband.  If the Parsi men want their culture to continue past their generation they need to get off their asses and move out of their parents house; the umbilical cord needs to be cut!  

I do like that the government is doing something to encourage the Parsi population to increase but their efforts are pointless if the Punchayet is still clinging to archaic practices.  It would be nice if the community would be more proactive and not have to rely on a government handout in order to boost their population numbers.  The majority of them are not hurting for cash and the Bombay Punchayet trust owns 54 acres of land and they have $$$ to spare.  They should be the ones offering assistance for IVF treatments and incentives for having kids.  This community does not live in Sion or Dharavi; they are not slum dwellers.  They have the funds to afford this.  The 5 Lakh that they are offering to couples would be better spent on programs to keep girls in schools (upgrading toilets, projects like Girls Glory, etc).

[af1212]

[quote author="@mx" source="/post/9802949/thread" timestamp="1437381870"
ETA @domerjen does Judaism also make you feel icky? I have a friend who is Jewish who is marrying a man whose father is Jewish and mother is not. Because he is essentially the wrong half Jewish (though he was raised Jewish and identifies as Jewish) they have struggled to find a Rabbi who will marry them. I mean, I think it's kind of nuts if you're trying to preserve a culture that you only consider one parent as capable of passing it down, but it's not my religion.
[/quote]


My cousin's wife is Hopi Indian and they follow the same "rules". The clan name and membership follow the females so as long as she has daughters they will remain in her clan. However her son will follow the clan (or not if she is not Hopi) of whoever he marries.

[af1212]

Jul 20, 2015 3:44:30 GMT -5 @mx said:

ETA @domerjen does Judaism also make you feel icky? I have a friend who is Jewish who is marrying a man whose father is Jewish and mother is not. Because he is essentially the wrong half Jewish (though he was raised Jewish and identifies as Jewish) they have struggled to find a Rabbi who will marry them. I mean, I think it's kind of nuts if you're trying to preserve a culture that you only consider one parent as capable of passing it down, but it's not my religion.

This is what I was quoting - not sure what happened there.

[AJL]

Jul 20, 2015 7:50:12 GMT -5 @domerjen said:

Jul 20, 2015 3:44:30 GMT -5 @mx said:

India is expected to reach replacement levels of fertility by 2020, so I'm hardly concerned about overpopulation in India. Yes, they have a LARGE population, but they also have a large land mass. Most of South India is already well below replacement levels, and the opposite concern is in play. Population growth is now driven primarily by 2-3 large, poor northern states.

We should be more concerned about the number of Indians reaching middle class and higher economic status and the concurrent demand for resources. But really that's our own fault for setting the global default for middle class consumption at such a ridiculously unsustainable standard for the supposedly ideal world where most people aren't desperately poor.

I think cultures where ethnicity or religion is passed down only by one sex of parent are a bit weird, but Parsis aren't really unique in that sense. I suspect what may also be at play here is the fact that Parsis have historically been a powerful business community in India with likely outsized political influence.

If we were talking about say Uganda or Mali or Niger where fertility rates are 6+ I'd think the government was out of its mind, regardless of the ethnic group in question.

ETA @domerjen does Judaism also make you feel icky? I have a friend who is Jewish who is marrying a man whose father is Jewish and mother is not. Because he is essentially the wrong half Jewish (though he was raised Jewish and identifies as Jewish) they have struggled to find a Rabbi who will marry them. I mean, I think it's kind of nuts if you're trying to preserve a culture that you only consider one parent as capable of passing it down, but it's not my religion.

Honestly, I feel the same way about that religion. But are they getting $ for a fertility campaign? If so, I would feel the same sort of icky. It's an exclusive practice - the children are still "blood" of that culture, they came from their mom for goodness sakes!

If that's how you want to roll in your culture, have at it. But I am not cool with it for myself.

Eta: I feel like this rolls nicely into the post about black Jews yesterday. Do you think that's ok, since they may not be ethnically Jewish?

I don't understand your question. Black Orthodox Jews are ethnically Jewish. The Jewish women will pass down Jewishness to all of their children, whether they practice the religion or not.  

[AJL]

That's the thing though - conversion to Judaism makes one Jewish in every meaning of the word - ethnically, culturally, and religiously. In Judaism a convert is to be regarded as exactly the same as a Jew by birth. I may be a convert but my children are Jews by birth. My daughter's children will be Jews by birth.

[AJL]

Jul 20, 2015 11:22:03 GMT -5 @domerjen said:

Jul 20, 2015 10:41:17 GMT -5 AJL said:

That's the thing though - conversion to Judaism makes one Jewish in every meaning of the word - ethnically, culturally, and religiously. In Judaism a convert is to be regarded as exactly the same as a Jew by birth. I may be a convert but my children are Jews by birth. My daughter's children will be Jews by birth.

I guess that's my beef with the Parsi article? They are saying that you can't be Parsi unless your dad was, because that's a blood relative, but your mom doesn't count. MX asked if I felt that way about the Jewish religion since it only "counts" if your mom is Jewish. So, obviously there is a breakdown in analogy since you are saying that conversion counts for all of that. I think it must not be a great analogy to the original article, as that is not the case with Parsi - there is no conversion?

I'm totally cool with all of these people doing as they wish. My comment was about a govt paying for fertility treatments to specifically help a group who are (by my reading of the article) discriminating against the women of said group.

As an aside, and not related, but you simply piqued my interest - if your dad is Jewish and your mom chooses not to convert, does that mean you have to "convert" to be considered Jewish? What if she converts after your birth?

This depends on which movement you ask. In Orthodoxy, this would never happen because Orthodox don't marry non-Jews. In Reform Judaism, if the child was raised Jewish, she/he would be considered Jewish. In the Conservative movement, the child would have to be converted. The same thing goes if the child were adopted. 

[ttt]

I find ethnicity passed down on father's side only to be weird for a number of reasons, not least because with a matrilineal connection, you can be pretty darn sure that the baby is actually the mother's biological child. Not so much with the father, especially pre-21st/late 20th century.

Personally, it's hard for me to understand why it wouldn't be passed down through both, but I know there are a lot of cultural issues there. But inheriting from the mother makes sense to me - inheriting from the father just seems like plain old sexism.

[sequins]

Jul 20, 2015 11:42:58 GMT -5 ttt said:

I find ethnicity passed down on father's side only to be weird for a number of reasons, not least because with a matrilineal connection, you can be pretty darn sure that the baby is actually the mother's biological child. Not so much with the father, especially pre-21st/late 20th century.

Personally, it's hard for me to understand why it wouldn't be passed down through both, but I know there are a lot of cultural issues there. But inheriting from the mother makes sense to me - inheriting from the father just seems like plain old sexism.

I don't know about parsis but in south india, a lot of customs place great emphasis on patrilineal stuff because of the reason you said. We have a saying about how a baby is accepted in society - "mother is a given, father needs more advertising"

[hopecounts]

As an infertile I'm always OK with making it easier for people to access fertility treatments.
the financial cost is insane and can be a huge barrier to couples who want children having them.
We are currently saving up to try for baby #2 and it's a big gamble because it may or may not work but the money is gone either way.

[ttt]

Jul 20, 2015 13:19:50 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

As an infertile I'm always OK with making it easier for people to access fertility treatments.
the financial cost is insane and can be a huge barrier to couples who want children having them.
We are currently saving up to try for baby #2 and it's a big gamble because it may or may not work but the money is gone either way.

Don't you think it's weird to only offer it to a particular ethnic group though? Especially when only the husband belonging to that group qualifies? I understand the cultural logic but it makes me feel some kind of way.

[hopecounts]

Jul 20, 2015 13:22:20 GMT -5 ttt said:

Jul 20, 2015 13:19:50 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

As an infertile I'm always OK with making it easier for people to access fertility treatments.
the financial cost is insane and can be a huge barrier to couples who want children having them.
We are currently saving up to try for baby #2 and it's a big gamble because it may or may not work but the money is gone either way.

Don't you think it's weird to only offer it to a particular ethnic group though? Especially when only the husband belonging to that group qualifies? I understand the cultural logic but it makes me feel some kind of way.

Ideally it would be for everyone but I don't think India is in a financial position to do that so I get the reason for prioritizing a group that is at risk for disappearing. 
As for following the paternal line and so on, it sounds like it is based on a very old agreement that was made when they were seeking to immigrate to India, it should be reviewed because it's out of date but there are plenty of groups as discussed above that track membership through one parental line and exclude others so it's eye brow raising but not side eye worthy to me.

[Deleted]

I think Status Indians in Canada had similar rules imposed on them by the government - if a man "married out", his kids were still status, but if a woman "married out", her kids weren't.

I think this has been somewhat rectified, but only in the 80's.

It seems like a strange way to try to "save" an ethnic group. Especially if the main problem is "marrying out", not infertility.