Airing dirty laundry goes mainstream

Chairman Yazdi Desai (left) and former board member Dinshaw Mehta

The split in the board of the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP) is out in the open. And on newsprint. Taking a public aura, two separate columns in two different weekly newspapers seem to be echoing the voices and opinions of the two rival factions within the BPP, leading to dirty laundry being aired in the open.

On January 7, the Parsi Times, a community newspaper owned by BPP board member Kersi Randeria ran their monthly column "BPP Connect" wherein Chairman Yazdi Desai alleged that the "derogatory and false content" being published under the column "Parsi Darshan" in Gujarati weekly Mumbai Samachar - owned by Munchi Cama, an ex-BPP trustee - was the creation of ex-board member Dinshaw Mehta and his son Viraf to "attack the BPP and its present board of trustees".

According to Desai and loyalist Kersi Randeria, the Mehta faction has been leaking boardroom secrets to Mumbai Samachar, but speaking to mid-day, the latter denied the allegation leveled against him.

‘BPP propaganda like Hitler's'
"I am not the ghost writer," stated ex-chairman Dinshaw Mehta, referring to the column in question. "Randeria and the BPP have been running a propaganda in their own medium very much like how Hitler used to. When Jame-e-Jamshed was criticising the board, its editorial rights were bought over last July by the management. Mumbai Samachar never used to publicise Parsi politics earlier but since there was no other medium available to the community to express their (different) views, the paper issued a public notice in December asking readers to come ahead and publish."

However, responding to Yazdi's allegation, Mehta said, "You will be reading a reply to in this week's Mumbai Samachar."

‘Content leaked from boardroom'
In spite of Mehta denying any role, Desai and Randeria are sure that the style, issues, and language being used in those columns bears a drastic resemblance to being Mehta's handiwork. "Stuff definitely looks like it has been leaked from the boardroom," said Randeria.

‘This is a new war'
Meanwhile, editor of Parsi Times, Anahita Subedar, has chimed in that "This is a new war," adding, "Over the last few months, some within the community have decided to go to the mainstream media and voice our concerns there, which is quite unnecessary."

Additionally, when mid-day tried getting in touch with Mumbai Samachar, there was no comment.