Zoroaster's followers are increasingly few in number and might disappear thanks to India's caste system and their own restrictive religious laws.

Mumbai (AsiaNews/SCMP) – The Parsis, the last followers of Zoroaster, today number 70,000 and dropping, this according to the latest census. In 15 years, there might be only 21,000 believers left of a religion founded 2,600 years ago by the world's first monotheist: Zarathushtra (Zoroaster).

After fleeing their Persian homeland, the Parsis found sanctuary in India where they loyally served the British Raj and Queen Victoria.

They are concentrated in and around Mumbai (ex Bombay) where the community has shaped the city's architecture building hospitals, the Towers of Silence and, in 1903, the world-famous Taj Mahal Hotel.

Some of the better known Zoroastrians are the late singer Freddie Mercury, symphonic conductor Zubin Mehta, and tycoon Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata.

In overwhelmingly Hindu India, the Parsis had to take on the appearance of a caste to keep their community intact, but their survival is threatened by their own religious laws. 

To be Parsi one must be born of a Parsi father even though conversion to Zoroastrianism is possible.

Since the 1950s the community has had more deaths than births. In recent years, deaths have averaged around 900 per year against 300 births.

Any economic incentives the community has provided to young couples to have three children have been to no avail.

Currently, 40 per cent of young Parsis are not married and 30 per cent have married outside their community.

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