As ‘Parsiana’ closes, Indian journalism loses a small but important voice

The final edition of Parsiana has rolled off the presses.

Established in 1964, the semi-weekly magazine was a vital institution for the shrinking tribe of Parsis and Zoroastrians around the world. Its pages chronicled the stories, achievements, and roiling disputes of a lakh-strong diaspora which made its mark from Mumbai to Manhattan, from Navsari to New Zealand.

Although Parsiana catered to the community, it also transcended its boundaries. Within the community’s confines, after all, were debates that mirrored national ones: democracy and fundamental rights, inclusion and exclusion, freedom of speech, and economic and social welfare. Never shying away from controversies, Parsiana captured these debates with an eye on the bigger picture.

In that sense, the magazine continued a much longer tradition of public-mindedness in Parsi journalism, one honed in Bombay during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But Parsiana’s unique style and perspectives were also very much the products of its longtime editor, Jehangir Patel. In Patel’s life and journalistic career, as well as in the publication he edited, one can trace stories of larger social and political transformations in India since independence.

Patel was born in August 1945 – not in the Parsi stronghold of Bombay but in Kashmir. He belonged to a family which had travel and migration in its veins. His...

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