Special Issue: Parsis and Iranians in the Modern Period

Abstract

A hundred years ago in colonial Bombay, on September 10, 1922, a group of Parsis established an organization called the Iran League. Meant to strengthen ties with their Iranian Zoroastrian coreligionists inside Iran, the Iran League also endeavored to recast wider economic and cultural relations between India and the country which Parsis regarded as their ancient homeland. That ancient homeland, after all, was undergoing seismic change. In the years following Reza Khan's 1921 coup and the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, Parsis watched with growing anticipation and excitement as Iran's new leader increasingly promoted a new national culture rooted in Iran's ancient past. Prominent Parsis, many of them leaders in the Iran League, fervently believed that Pahlavi Iran would herald all sorts of progressive change: improved conditions for the Iranian Zoroastrians, deeper appreciation of Zoroastrianism among Iran's Muslim majority, conditions for significant Parsi investment in Iran, and even the possibility of a mass Parsi “return” to the shah's domain, reversing the direction of centuries of Zoroastrian migration.1