An informal visit to Auroville by its governing board chairman and Tamil Nadu Governor R. N. Ravi, has acquired added import when his cross-sectional interactions, included a meeting with a section of residents that has been opposing the manner in which the universal township was being developed. The two-day programme by Mr. Ravi, accompanied by Auroville Foundation Secretary Jayanti Ravi and others, included visits to various farms, cottage industries, the Tibetan Pavilion and Auroville Earth Institute. He later had informal discussions with the three reconstituted working groups, the Working Committee, the Funds and Assets Management Committee and the Auroville Town Development Council. The chairman also met representatives of the working committee elected parallelly by a Residents Assembly, marking the first-ever direct interface between this group and the governing board chairman, since a long-drawn conflict erupted in December 2021, over Auroville’s development that has seen protests, police cases and law suits. The Mother had founded Auroville in 1968 as a unique, socio-spiritual experiment in realising human unity on a place like no other on earth that belonged to no individual but to humanity as a whole and where people from all over the world collectively pursue a higher consciousness. Since December 2021, when a section of residents raised environmental concerns and blocked the bulldozing of trees to build the Crowd Road, a radial road around the Matrimandir and a key element of the galaxy plan envisaged by The Mother, the community has seen a sharp polarisation over how Auroville should step into the future. While one group contended that the long-pending galaxy plan chosen for the City of Dawn by The Mother should be freed up from the factors that impeded implementation of the Master Plan since it was approved by the Residents’ Assembly in 1999 and gazetted in 2010, a rival camp advocated for flexibility in approach and eco-sensitivity to the new realities of the emergent landscape while developing the city. Amid an escalation of the conflict, Auroville managers cast the resistance as an extension of “obstructionist tactics that have thwarted progressing towards the common goal through consensus-building or collaboration”. Their doubling down on the plan led to more protests over the “usurping of self-governance rights and relegation of established community participation and collaborative processes”. While it may be too early to see the chairman’s discussions with the dissident camp as a harbinger of harmony in the community, there is, nevertheless, hope on both sides of the divide that more interactions of this nature could set the stage for collective participation in developing Auroville, sources said. In a press note, the “Working Committee elected by the residents in June 2022”, termed the meeting with the chairman as “an important first stepping stone in restoring communication with the Auroville Governing Board”, and hoped that the chairman would intervene to “rectify the oppressive actions against the residents and restore the collaborative functioning of Auroville”. Representatives, who shared some of Auroville’s many past work, such as the innovative Dreamweaving initiative to develop the city in a conscious and ecological manner, complained that these efforts were ignored. It is imperative that the residents are involved and consulted in planning processes and decision-making, the press note said. They also appealed to the Chairman to help restore a sense of safety and security for the residents of Auroville by stopping “the culture of intimidation” and called for measures to protect the lands of Auroville from encroachments. A spokesperson for Auroville Media Interface said the chairman had interactions with various residents and resident groups, and engaged in meaningful interactions “for manifesting the city of Auroville, beyond all polarisations”. The chairman stressed on the importance of all residents collaborating with the Governing Board in building Auroville, and gave a call to focus on developing inner consciousness that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had created Auroville for, and discover new and higher models of collective living and organisation. He was also categorical that Auroville will be manifested as per its original aim and vision, in full adherence to the Auroville Foundation Act, and that stagnation or even failure of Auroville is not an option, the spokesman said.
Published - October 28, 2022 08:03 pm IST
