Saving India’s Parsis

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In industry, law, politics, the military and medicine, some of India’s stand-out performers have been Parsi. As Zoroastrians, they fled religious persecution in Iran more than a thousand years ago – now the majority of them live in Mumbai. But this is a community whose numbers are dwindling fast. Estimated at around 60,000, there are half as many Parsis in India now as there were in the 1940s. In a surprising effort to stem the decline, the government is backing ‘Jiyo Parsi’ – funding for fertility treatment and advocacy to encourage Parsis to make more babies. But the anxiety about population throws into relief underlying dissent within the Parsi community - who can and who cannot be counted as a Parsi? (Image: Hufriya is one of the babies born after her mother had fertility treatment paid for by the Indian Government. BBC Copyright)