Dinshah Irani

Who was Dinshah Irani?

Sir Dinshah Irani was an Indian lawyer and distinguished benefactor of the Zoroastrian communities of both India and Iran.

Dinshah Irani is most famous for founding the 'Iranian Zoroastrian Anjuman' in 1918 and of the 'Iran League' in 1922. Both organizations, like the earlier 'Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Fund' established in 1854 by Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, were founded with the aim of improving the conditions for the less fortunate Zoroastrian co-religionists in Iran. Dinshah's efforts to improve the conditions for that community were recognized in 1932 when he - along with fellow Indian Rabindranath Tagore - was invited to Iran as a special guest of the then king Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Dinshah Irani was born in Bombay to parents of the Irani Zoroastrian community of India. He was a direct descendant of an Iranian refugee who fled from Iran to the west coast of British India in the early 1790s. One of the sons of that refugee had remained in Iran and became an ancestor of Zoroastrian leader Keikhosrow Shahrokh.