The Story of the Parsis in Aden

- Dr Ausaf Sayeed

After the British conquest of Aden in 1839 A.D., and its declaration as a free port, several
Indian traders, including Hindus, Muslims and Parsis, started settling down in this thriving city.
According to the 1872 census, there were only 121 Parsis out of the total population of 19,289
of Aden, but by 1911 census, the number of Parsis living in Aden increased to 384, of which
268 were men and 116 were women.1 In 1840, Eduljee Muncherjee Colabawalla became
Aden's oldest shipping chandler, when he started his business as a supplier of shore and
shipping requirements.2

Another illustrious Parsi merchant, Cowasjee Dinshaw Adenwala (1827-1900), arrived in

Aden in 18453 and soon transformed the port of Aden into a facility capable of accommodating
the streamer traffic between the Indian Ocean and Europe. By 1846, the Parsis began to move
into the gum, hides and coffee trade, and they seemed to be the only members of the
commercial community with large enough capital to buy the cargoes of American ships. 4

In 1856 Cowasjee partnered with Captain Luke Thomas in his banking business, which became
a limited liability company in 1857, known as Luke Thomas & Co. In June 1863, Cowasjee
signed a 10-year contract for the restoration of the 'Playfair' Tank and six other hill tanks at
Tawila, along with two other merchants, a Persian, Hasan Ali and another Parsi, Eduljee
Manekji. This contract was renewed in 1873 for further 30 years, and the tank water began to
be sold commercially.5

After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the British India Steam Navigation Company (BI)
secured the services of the Cowasjee Dinshaw as their agent.6 By the 1890s, Cowasjee started
operating tiny steamers between Suez and Mukalla to provide a regular service for passengers,
cargo and mail. Amongst his many ventures, he had an entire floating dock shipped from
Britain in 1895, which was known locally as the “Dinshaw Pontoon”.7

In 1853 A.D. Cowasjee built a small Fire Temple in Tawila, Crater area in Aden, which was
eventually converted to an ‘Atash Adran’ in 1883 A.D. A ‘dokhma’ (‘Tower of Silence’) was
also built in Aden, which was used by the Zoroastrians for exposure of their dead. The

1
James Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Part 18, p.641, Kessinger Publishing (2003)
2
Port of Aden Annual, 1955-56, p.54
3
Jesse S.Palsetia, The Parsis of India: preservation of identity in Bombay city, p.61, BRILL (2001)
4
R.J.Gavin, Aden under British rule, 1839-1967, p.371, C.Hurst & Co. Publishers (1975)
5
Z.H.Kour, The History of Aden (1839-1872), p.54, Frank Cass (1981)
6
J.Forbes Munro, Maritime Enterprise and Empire, p.166, The Boydell Press (2003)
7
http://www.adenairways.com/Personalities/page202/page24/page14/page14.html, accessed on January 12, 2012
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Cowasjee Dinshaw family also built a mosque for the local Muslim population, known as the
Cowasji Masjid, which is still in use in Aden.8

Cowasjee's son Hormusji Cowasjee Adenwala (1857-1939) expanded the family shipping
business and established new routes to East Africa. He had the high honour of reading the
address of welcome to the Prince of Wales on his arrival at Aden on 12th November 1921 on
his way to Bombay.9 He was an important member of the Parsi community and was knighted
by the British in 1922.10 In Aden, the Dinshaws undertook considerable charitable work in the
educational, religious and medical fields.

After the formation of the People’s Democratic Republic (PDYR) in 1967, the Fire Temple
and its associated properties, then worth Rs 1 million, became the state property. By then the
number of Parsis in Aden dwindled to only 20 and their main concern was preventing any
possible desecration of the Holy Fire. Cowasjee Nusserwanji Dinshaw (1926-2010), the great
grandson of Cowasjee Dinshaw Adenwala, requested the intervention of Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi and Foreign Minister Y.B.Chavan to use their good offices with the PDRY government
for transferring the Holy Fire to India.11 Eventually, the Chairman of the Presidential Council
of PDYR, Salem Robya Ali, agreed to allow the fire to be taken to India. 12 The condition was
that it would have to be moved out at midnight.

The only practical way to transport the ‘Holy Fire’ was by air. Accordingly, on Saturday,
November 13, 1976, at around 9 p.m. a special Air India chartered Boeing 707 “Lhotse”, with
an all-Parsi crew under Capt. Sam Pedder with Capt. Balsara as co-pilot but no air hostesses
took off from Bombay and landed at Aden. The aircraft also carried a batch of six priests under
the leadership of Dastoorji Kaikobad Ferozeji, the high priest of Udwada.

The ‘Holy Fire’ was placed in a special aluminium urn built by N.S.Mistry of the Engineering
department of Air India. As the aircraft took off, the Yemeni officials gave it a 21-gun salute,
in the presence of high-ranking Yemeni officials and Imtaz Ali, India’s Ambassador in Aden.
The Air India plane was virtually converted into the world’s first “flying” fire temple. The
‘Holy Fire’ arrived the next morning at 7.15 a.m. in Bombay and was initially kept at the
Soonawala fire temple in Mahim before it was enthroned at the Lonavala Agairy later.

Thus, the historic journey of Parsis in Aden ended. One can still see the ruins of the ‘Tower of
Silence’ in the Crater area of Aden on a small plateau of the Shamsan Range south of the Tawila
Tanks.

8
Mahrukh C.Noble, Shifting of the Parsee Fire Temple from Aden to India, Zoroastrian Association of Victoria (ZAV),
Special Edition, p.6. September 2006
9
Dosabhai Framji Karaka, History of the Parsis Including Their Manners, Customs, Religion and Present Position, p.261,
Kessinger Publishing (2004)
10
Parsee Prakash,3:410, 796; C.H.Jhabvala, Cowasjee Dinshaw Adenvala C.I.E. (Bombay, 1920) quoted by J.S. Palsetia in
The Parsis of India
11
Pervez Daruwala, The Flames of Faith, Jam-e-Jamshed Weekly, Parsi New Year Special, 16th August, 1998
12
Homi D.Mistry, Saga of modern Prometheus, p.5, Blitz, November 20, 1976
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* The author is a former diplomat of India who has served as Ambassador of India to Sana’a