RAWALPINDI: Hidden behind a row of shops along Rawalpindi’s bustling Murree Road, amid the incessant honking and concrete sprawl of a rapidly expanding city, a 128-year-old Parsi cemetery stands as one of the last visible reminders of a community that once helped shape the region’s commercial and social life.
Established in January 1898 by the grandsons of prominent Parsi merchants Set Jehangirji Framji Jussawalla and Set Jamasji Hormasji Bogha, the cemetery has survived the Partition of united India and the birth of Pakistan as well as subsequent political upheaval and decades of urban expansion. Rows of weathered headstones, some predating the creation of Pakistan in 1947, tell the story of families who once called Rawalpindi home. Many of the names engraved on the stone no longer have descendants in the country, turning the cemetery into a quiet archive of a community that has nearly disappeared.
Parsis, also known as Zoroastrians, trace their origins to ancient Persia, present-day Iran. Legally recognized in Pakistan as a non-Muslim minority, they believe their prophet, Zarathustra, lived sometime between approximately 1500 BCE and 600 BCE and founded one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions. Following the early Islamic expansions, groups of Zoroastrians gradually migrated to the Indian subcontinent, where they established communities that became known as Parsis and earned a reputation as traders, industrialists and philanthropists.
The Parsis who settled in Rawalpindi largely belonged to merchant families that used the city as a commercial gateway linking northern India with Kashmir and Afghanistan, according to historians. Although never large in number, the community became woven into the social and economic life of what was then one of northern India’s most important trading centers.
Across the subcontinent, the community was also known for its philanthropy, contributing to the establishment of schools, hospitals, colleges and other public institutions while leaving an outsized imprint on business, education and civic life despite their relatively small population.
“There were a couple of thousand Parsis in Rawalpindi before Partition [1947]. Today we are left with just 14 or 15 souls,” said Isphanyar Bhandara, a Parsi member of Pakistan’s National Assembly who is also the custodian of the Rawalpindi Parsi cemetery.
“I proudly represent them and I look after the graveyard. We all have to end up there one day. It’s our future home.”
Walking through the cemetery, Bhandara pointed to rows of graves dating back decades.
“You’ll find graves that are 80, 90, 100 years old, even older. Only a handful belong to people buried in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said, explaining that most Parsi families from the city had long emigrated.
TOWERS OF SILENCE
Like many ancient faiths, Zoroastrianism developed distinctive funerary traditions rooted in the belief that the natural elements should not be polluted by human remains. Traditionally, the dead were placed in dakhmas, or Towers of Silence, where vultures and other scavenging birds consumed the bodies.
“Our belief was not to pollute the earth, the water or the fire with a dead body. The vultures would consume the remains and only the bones would be left,” Bhandara said.
Changing environmental conditions and the decline in vulture populations have, however, forced many Zoroastrian communities around the world to adapt centuries-old burial customs. Pakistan inherited two historic dakhmas after Partition, both in the southern port city of Karachi. None existed in Rawalpindi or Lahore, making conventional burials the practical alternative for the small communities that remained there.
“With growing populations and the disappearance of birds from the skies, many Parsis have opted for cremation,” Bhandara said.
“The Parsis of Rawalpindi and Lahore, meanwhile, chose burial six feet under, much like our Muslim brothers and sisters.”
Pakistan’s Parsi population, once estimated by community leaders at between 15,000 and 20,000 people, has declined sharply over the decades. By 2025, around 900 Parsis lived in Karachi, with only a few dozen elsewhere in the country.
The decline mirrors a broader demographic trend across the global Parsi community. India, home to the world’s largest Parsi population, has seen its numbers fall steadily for decades, from nearly 115,000 in the 1941 census to about 57,000 in 2011, prompting the government to launch programs aimed at slowing the community’s decline. Worldwide, the Zoroastrian population is estimated at about 110,000 to 120,000 people, with most living in India and Iran.
For Bhandara, the community’s dwindling numbers reflect a broader story of migration driven by economic, social and security concerns.
“People don’t leave their homeland easily,” he said.
Bhandara believes preserving sites like the cemetery is not merely the responsibility of the tiny Parsi community but of the state as well.
“It is the government’s duty to preserve these places,” he said, adding that minority religious sites are part of Pakistan’s shared heritage and could contribute to religious tourism if properly maintained.
