A few days ago, there was a storm in a dhansak bowl as news bubbled up that the venerable Bombay Parsi Panchayat had decreed that any Parsi who earned less than Rs 90,000 a month is a “poor” Parsi.
“But this in a country where the Planning Commission says anyone earning more than Rs 870 a month is not poor” was a common refrain. “I’d love to be a poor Parsi” was another.
Wealth and poverty are relative. A poor Nepali is poorer than a poor Indian, who is a lot poorer than a poor Englishman, if one looks at it through gross domestic product per capita in purchasing power parity terms. It can be argued that the relative poverty between countries is a different issue from one within the same country, but then, India is a subcontinent. The price of housing in Mumbai, for example, is unimaginable to someone in, say, Katihar or Coorg. A two-bedroom flat in any middle class neighbourhood in Mumbai city would cost nothing less than Rs 30,000 a month to rent now.
The Bombay Parsi Panchayat’s “poor Parsi” definition must be looked at in light of this. The panchayat offers subsidised housing to members of the community who are defined as poor. However, the community is a small one, numbering barely 125,000 globally, and dwindling. Its per capita income is high. It, therefore, needed to set a high maximum income level to ensure that it gets enough applicants for the subsidised housing.