| Abstract: | There has been a catastrophic decline in the numbers of India's vultures, on which the Parsis once depended for the disposal of their dead. Parsi numbers are falling too. Their community represents only 0.0005 per cent of the population of the Indian subcontinent, yet they have made such a mark in so many walks of life. Could Zoroastrian culture explain their disproportionate success? Parsi shipbuilders built frigates of Malabar teak for the British Navy and the EIC, Parsis provided the brains behind India's nuclear programme, the backbone of India's manufacturing industry and such international musical icons as Zubin Mehta and Freddie Mercury, as well as the first Asian MPs at Westminster and the first Indian cricket team to tour England,. Parsi merchant-princes made fortunes in the opium trade yet rivalled Andrew Carnegie in their philanthropy. |
