Tata spat adds to angst of India's dwindling Parsis

Mumbai : Tata has long swelled the pride of India's small Parsi community but recent infighting and fears the conglomerate's next chief will be an outsider is unnerving the rapidly dwindling group.

Mumbai's famous but notoriously private Parsis are unhappy at the daily mudslinging between company patriarch Ratan Tata and his Parsi counterpart, former chairman Cyrus Mistry, following the latter's unceremonious sacking last month.

"Parsis are upset because the battle between Mistry and Tata went public instead of staying as boardroom negotiations. We hope it is over soon," said Jehangir Patel, editor of community magazine Parsiana.

Parsis are followers of Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest religions. Zoroastrians believe in one god and worship in fire temples, believing fire to be a symbol of their god's purity. 

They first arrived in India more than 1,000 years ago after fleeing persecution in Persia.

They became one of India's wealthiest communities, boasting a number of famed industrialists, including the internationally-renowned Tata family synonymous with the financial rise of India's commercial capital Mumbai.

The community has also produced acclaimed Indian scientists and musicians and its influence far exceeds its size.

However, late marriages and falling birth rates have sparked a demographic crisis that is threatening the group's survival with the number of Zoroastrians in Indiamore than halving since 1940.

There are now fewer than 60,000 in India, where most Zoroastrians live, and infighting between reformists and traditionalists about how to preserve the traditionally-closed group is commonplace.

Tata and Mistry are pillars of Mumbai's Parsi set and their spat appears to be adding to the angst that many Parsi-Zoroastrians feel about the community's uncertain future.

"The feud is a letdown for the Parsi community as its number of role models and people in position of power reduces," Patel told AFP.

Tata Group is a sprawling $103 billion steel-to-salt conglomerate founded under British colonial rule in 1868. 

It operates in more than 100 countries and owns high-profile companies such as Britain's Jaguar Land Rover and Anglo-Dutch steel firm Corus.

Mistry, 48, was sacked as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of TataGroup, on October 24, just four years after succeeding Ratan Tata to become its first chief who was not a member of the immediate Tata family.

Tata is said to have become increasingly frustrated by Mistry's focus on divestments as he sought to reduce the sprawling group's $30 billion debt level.