"What becomes clear in these publications and in others like them is that the
rhetoric of asserting similitude to the European entails the assertion of distance from
non-Parsi Indian communities. They become other: barbaric, uncivilized, nonrational, dark-skinned, essentially different in their constitution. Some Parsis chastised
the community for this separatist sensibility, but it is undeniably present in the texts
and in what we know of the practices of at least the Parsi elite. Parsis lived in
Anglicized houses; they became active as liberal reformists, often attempting to reform
"backward" Hindu customs; they wrote about the "rational" quality of Zoroastrian
religion, its lack of ritualism, and its compatibility with science, which they saw as
a contrast to Hinduism. By 1901 25 percent of the community spoke English, as
compared to less than 1 percent of the Jains and .5 percent of the Hindus (Axelrod
1974, 31).15"
- T. M. Luhrmann, "Evil in the Sands of Time: Theology and Identity Politics among the Zoroastrian
Parsis", Retrieved 05/31/2020 From: http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/amcdouga/MEAS400/winter%202008/mar%2010/abad_rdg.pdf
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