Lauding Parsis for their role in India's freedom struggle and post-independence nation building, Indian High Commissioner to the UK Navtej Sarna has said the community has made immense contributions to the country.
Sarna was speaking at an event held yesterday under the aegis of Zoroastrian All Party Parliamentary Group, in association with the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE), at the British Parliament.
It was chaired by Cobra Beer chief Lord Karan Bilimoria, the first Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords.
Sarna was the special guest speaker alongside Dr David Landsman, head of Tata in the UK, and Sir Mominic Cadbury, former chairman of Cadbury and Schweppes, on the topic 'Faith based ethics in Business: The Cadbury and The Tata Way'.
"A handful of people from Iran had landed on Indian shores seeking a place where they could freely profess and pursue their religion more than a thousand years ago.
"The Zoarastrians or Parsis, as they came to be known had been absorbed into India's patchwork quilt of religions and ethnicities," Sarna said.
He noted that maintaining their strong sense of identity and culture, Parsis had contributed to India richly over the centuries through personalities like Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Dr Homi Bhaba, Field Marshall Sam Maneckshaw and maestro Zubin Mehta, who had all played a great role in various fields in modern Indian history.
