The Road to Utopia is Not Smooth
The golden the Matrimandir pavilion at the centre of Auroville (image: Rebecca Conway).
My first visit to Auroville last year, in the heat and humidity of March, offered a glimpse into the working of this experimental township. Auroville is a 20-minute drive from the coastal city of Puducherry, south India, and the village road leading up to its visitor centre is full of posters announcing yoga or pottery workshops; signs giving directions to organic farms, bike rentals and guesthouses; cozy cafés, tea stalls and pizza corners. You can walk along the tree-lined road to Auroville’s innermost Peace Area, and gaze up at Matrimandir, the meditation pavilion, in awe of its shimmering golden discs and massive scale.
Auroville is a self-governing, international city located 5km off the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Recognised by Unesco as an “international cultural township”, Auroville is as much a social experiment as it is a town-planning model. While it falls under the jurisdiction of the central government of India, it has been given a degree of autonomy, such that anyone from around the world can formally apply for Aurovillian citizenship – although they would still be required to obtain an Indian visa to stay. Its 3,300 residents, who hail from 60 different nations, describe themselves as being committed to working towards the utopian dream of “divine consciousness for all”, which was set in place by Auroville’s founder Mirra Alfassa (better known to her followers as The Mother), the French disciple of the Indian nationalist and spiritual guru Sri Aurobindo. Yet alongside Auroville’s spiritual mission, the city is noted for its experiments across education, green building technology and economics, attracting students and volunteers from within India, as well as Europe, Russia and America. People come here to participate in sustainability workshops, study spiritual teachings, or simply get a feel for the city.
A treehouse at the Auroville Youth Centre, which was partially bulldozed during an attempt to clear an area making up the site of the proposed Crown Road project.
“Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.” These words were read out on 28 February 1968 as representatives of 124 nations and all states of India placed handfuls of earth from their homelands into a marble-clad urn to symbolise human unity – the stated purpose behind the birth of Auroville. More than 5,000 people gathered on inauguration day at the amphitheatre that had been built along with Matrimandir (the Temple of The Mother) in what was to become the central core of the city, now known as the Peace Area. The Peace Area also contains 12 main gardens around Matrimandir (which are in varying stages of completion), peripheral green spaces and a surrounding lake, all planned by the late French architect Roger Anger, who was appointed by The Mother to oversee the physical development of Auroville.
“Auroville’s 3,300 residents describe themselves as working towards the utopian dream of ‘divine consciousness for all’.”
Anger’s proposal for Auroville’s masterplan was inspired by The Mother’s initial sketch in 1965 of a mandala-like city form with four demarcated zones – residential, industrial, cultural and international – distributed around a central nucleus. He called this the Galaxy Plan, due to the spiralling “lines of force” essential for the integration of all access to the city centre. After The Mother had made requests to many national governments (including her home country France) to donate land for the establishment of a city that “does not belong to anyone in particular but to humanity as a whole” (as she stated in the handwritten document called the Auroville Charter, which sets out the ideals behind the township), she accepted the dry and barren stretch that she was given in India, in the southernmost state of Tamil Nadu. This gift of land was granted in the wake of India gaining independence from almost 200 years of British colonial rule, with the country keen on generating a new, modern identity for itself.
A pathway through a forest in Auroville.
More than 50 years later, the idea of what it means to be an Aurovillian continues to develop. Today, the city has a one-and-a-half-year induction process for those applying for citizenship, which includes offering voluntary services in any one of its departments (such as the Centre for Scientific Research that experiments with green building technology, using mud blocks or ferrocement), finding accommodation, and receiving feedback and approval from the existing community. Upon becoming a member, the person receives a monthly “maintenance” sum (fixed at 18,000 INR or around £187) in exchange for community service or employment at an income-generating unit in Auroville. As such, there are no privately owned businesses or land investments allowed in the city. However, one can set up commercial activity on collectively owned land after registering it as an Auroville enterprise, with bakeries and eateries being among the most popular of these initiatives. Citizens are offered benefits such as free schooling for children up to 18 years of age, medical insurance, and access to groceries, meals and some services at reduced prices. The township has gained selfsufficiency in the production of milk and some seasonal fruits, and fulfils 50 per cent of its overall vegetable requirements.
Most people who have decided to become a part of this community, or are born into it, willingly offer their expertise and services in the hope of the brighter future that The Mother and Sri Aurobindo foresaw, embracing new technology for innovations in the field of sustainable living. In this respect, some Aurovillians remain committed to continuing to build the township as per the Galaxy Plan and its projected population of 50,000 people. Recently, however, Auroville has reached a crossroads, with some residents starting to challenge whether the faithful completion of Anger’s masterplan should be prioritised above all else. At the centre of this debate is the construction of Crown Road, a circular road around Matrimandir that would link the four zones in the masterplan. For the past two years, discussions over the Crown Road’s implementation have prompted a prolonged period of indecision about a defining element in the township’s future development. With mounting tension within the community, and pressure from the central government of India (which partially funds Auroville’s development along with NGOs and private donors) to go forward with the approved masterplan, Auroville stands on the brink of change.
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Initially, The Mother guided the development of Auroville herself. After her death in November 1973, however, residents found themselves in confrontation with members of the Sri Aurobindo Society (an organisation started by The Mother in 1960 and headquartered in Puducherry), which claimed control over the township. In response, and following repeated requests from residents, India’s central government passed the Auroville Emergency Provisions Act in 1980, whereby the management of all assets and undertakings in Auroville was temporarily vested with the Indian government. The Sri Aurobindo Society challenged the constitutional validity of the act on the grounds of Auroville having religious autonomy, but was overruled in 1982 by the Supreme Court, which maintained that while it represented the spiritual teachings of Sri Aurobindo, the township was not owned by the Society. Following this period of government intervention, the Auroville Foundation Act was passed in 1988, ordering the formal constitution of a governing body that would comprise members appointed by the Indian government, international advisers, and representatives from the Aurovillian community, to be headed by the government-appointed secretary to the Foundation.
Workers decorate and press paper at the Auroville Papers workshop.
This Foundation is now at the heart of a series of incidents that have beset Auroville around the Crown Road project, which has made apparent the pre-existing fractures in the social fabric of the township. In 2021 Jayanti Ravi, the principal secretary in the health and family welfare department of the Gujarat state government, was transferred to the post of secretary to the Auroville Foundation. Her tenure has been marked by a policy of “building the city immediately”, which became tangible when JCBs arrived to tear down buildings and uproot trees in the path of the Crown Road in the Galaxy Plan. On 4 December 2021, bulldozers and police massed in the forest of the township under the cover of darkness. “That night dozens of protesting Aurovillians stood in their pathway and prevented any demolition,” reported The Guardian. “But five days later, the JCBs returned and this time razed a 25-year-old youth centre and hundreds of trees.” Citizens have alleged manhandling and forced detention of young people in police vehicles. They also claim that in the second show of violence, the police, on the secretary’s command, came with a pack of goons who were paid to ensure that the clearance happened without any hindrance from protesters.
“We’ve been in a slumber and stuck in endless discussions. This has definitely woken us up.”
“This place is something very beautiful that India has so magnanimously offered and we cannot have decadence and stagnation any longer,” said Ravi in justification of her acceleration of the Galaxy Plan. “The masterplan was already agreed upon by the residents; it is my mandate to implement it.” Her words and actions have fuelled concern, however, that this could be the start of India’s central government interfering directly in Auroville’s planning and future. As a career civil servant, Ravi is implicated in the project of the leading Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing government pursuing an increasingly Hindu nationalist ideology under prime minister Narendra Modi. There are speculations that Auroville has now become a part of the central government’s larger “development oriented” scheme, following Modi’s “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (everyone’s support, everyone’s progress) approach – a more action-based style of governance that has been criticised for failing to consider its own socioeconomic and environmental implications.
Buildings belonging to the Youth Centre, which was partially bulldozed during an attempt to clear an area making up the site of the proposed Crown Road.
“I was feeling physically sick back in January when things were being razed down in Auroville,” says John Harper, one of the five executives of Matrimandir responsible for decisions regarding the development and management of the Peace Area. “The entire commune energy was disturbed. However, these events have made us realise that we’ve been in a slumber and stuck in endless discussions. It has definitely woken us up.” Even before the blatant display of power by Ravi, however, Crown Road was the subject of serious discussion among Aurovillians, with clear standpoints beginning to emerge on both sides. Some residents hold the view that The Mother’s vision of spiritual consciousness for all cannot be realised without building the city exactly as she instructed. As such, they see the secretary as a catalyst for positive change. Others, who are sometimes labelled “anti Galaxy”, are of the opinion that Anger’s masterplan is only a broader scheme for Auroville’s incremental growth and need not be followed to the letter. They believe that it should be adapted to the present ecological realities of the town and actual usage. “My parents came to Auroville because the Charter excited them, not the masterplan,” says Nina Sharma [name changed] over lunch at the Solar Kitchen, a community dining hall on Crown Road. “They were selflessly working in the sun when nothing had existed here at all. We know what it took to make a single tree survive,” she continues, referring to the efforts put by pioneering Aurovillians into intensive tree plantation that helped raise the groundwater table. “I am deeply offended by how easily some [Auroville residents] have forgotten that.” As it stands, the National Green Tribunal, India’s highest environmental court, has put a stay on all tree felling in Auroville after a group of residents filed a case against the Foundation. Additionally, a petition was signed by more than 500 people requesting a stay of any construction activity for Crown Road. Aurovillians are now debating how to manifest their utopian dream without running the risk of the township falling apart.
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When I travelled to Aurvoille in March 2021, I did so as an architect. The trip was the result of an open design call to create four out of the twelve main gardens in the Peace Area. Announced by the Matrimandir executives in 2019, the open call aimed to shortlist conceptual entries after a two-stage process. Along with my colleague Vir Shah and two other selected teams, I was invited for a 15-day stay in Auroville as part of the process. Personally, the thrill of our designs going forward was quickly surpassed by the chance to tour the township accompanied by Aurovillians. Covering everything from public buildings and schools, to forest walks and waste-management systems, our visit was largely aimed at addressing one of the major drawbacks of the anonymous design-selection process for the project (the first design call opened to people outside of Auroville’s community), which resulted in inviting designers with a limited understanding of the place, its ecology and social structure.
Visitors at a viewing point overlooking the Matrimandir complex.
“We worked with the agenda of restoring peace in the Peace Area while formulating the selection process,” says Hemant Shekhar, a Matrimandir executive at the time, and our primary host in the first visit. “The gardens had not progressed for six years due to the internal conflicts in Auroville.” The Matrimandir gardens are part of Anger’s Galaxy Plan and were each assigned a spiritual theme by The Mother, along with a list of flowers that she had chosen for them. They are the embodiment of the spiritual teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and together with Matrimandir symbolise the spirit of unity that gave birth to Auroville. In essence, the 12 gardens are intended to reveal specific spiritual qualities to those walking through them before they enter Matrimandir for silent meditation. However, Anger’s designs, and subsequent proposals by other creatives, had not been implemented due to disagreements in the community over the designs not physically translating The Mother’s concepts satisfactorily. After reaching a dead end, the executive committee was reshuffled in 2018 to start the process afresh. “The only way ahead was to come up with a fair procedure to invite new ideas for the four gardens of Light, Life, Power and Wealth,” says Shekhar. The selection process included two rounds of community feedback, as well as suggestions from a neutral international panel of landscape architects.
“The gardens had not progressed for six years due to the internal conflicts in Auroville.”
The selected teams had also been brought together to Auroville in the hope that our designs could be integrated over a period of two weeks, and that the outcome would be superior to what the individual teams had proposed. Ultimately, since one team did not show up, Vir and I joined hands with the third selected designer, Anandit Sachdev, to present a collective proposal for all four gardens. During this time, we were introduced to “dream weaving”, a term coined by Aurovillians for engaging in design discussions with the community, integrating feedback and collaborating with experts within Auroville for inputs on lighting, irrigation, planting and other civil works. This has turned out to be a successful arrangement – residents feel more involved in the making of the gardens and we designers gain the practical support required for the project to move ahead. Dream-weaving has been tested in the past with equal success for other projects in Auroville, such as the visitor centre parking area and the Garden of the Unexpected (one of the peripheral gardens in the Peace Area), although these did not involve designers from outside the community.
Auroville residents meet to discuss the creation of a Youth Network and other issues.
At present, the gardens of Life and Power are nearing completion and will be inaugurated on the 150th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s birth on 15 August 2022 – a date that also marks 75 years of India’s independence. The construction of these two gardens, situated under the Big Banyan – the tree that was chosen to be the geographical centre of Auroville’s planning – began in November 2021. While some Aurovillians have expressed scepticism about “outsiders” designing the second most important element of the masterplan after Matrimandir itself, many are looking forward to experiencing the finished gardens. Also on track for 15 August is the construction of a 100m-wide, 10m-deep water reservoir that will encircle the Peace Area, converting the central core of the township into a mini island, as suggested in Anger’s Galaxy Plan.
“At first, I had found it quite odd that the gardens were being designed by those who had never been to Matrimandir before and did not know The Mother’s philosophy around the different themes of these gardens,” says G. Kalaiarasan Sambavar, a third-generation Aurovillian who heads the electrical department at Matrimandir. “[But] after having worked with the three of you and seen the designs evolve over the past few months, I am happy. The gardens are taking shape with the collective spirit that Roger had wanted.” While the final planting scheme is being implemented over July under the supervision of the 90-year-old Richard Eggenberger, who was appointed by The Mother for this task (and prefers to be called by his spiritual name Narad), the executive body at Matrimandir has been replaced since construction began, save for one member. “I had to leave Auroville with my wife for a few years when things got too heavy down here: too many groups, too much negativity took an emotional toll on us,” Narad tells me in his low, husky voice while flipping through the book on flowers that have been chosen for each garden on the basis of their “vibration”. “[My wife] left her body a few years ago,” he adds. “I have only recently started to get involved in the work that The Mother assigned to me. I can’t avoid it!”
Curious about Narad’s opinion, I press him on the debate around the garden-design selection process. “I don’t think the ‘who’ really matters when it comes to The Mother’s gardens,” he replies. “You and I are only the media for this divine work to happen. Do not make the mistake of identifying yourself with the designs that are manifesting here in front of us. We like to talk here in Auroville, when the only thing we should be doing is working! The Mother’s vision was not restricted to only those who have signed up to live here. New Consciousness will dawn upon the whole world; she was clear about that.” Many Aurovillians are practitioners of Integral Yoga – a system prescribed by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother for rapid spiritual transformation and self-revelation – central to which is detaching oneself from material aspirations and surrendering to divine service. Working to fulfil The Mother’s vision is recognised as the primary divine service in Auroville, in the process of which a person would transcend lower levels of human consciousness. Both Galaxy and anti-Galaxy proponents believe that they have understood The Mother’s intentions better, and all members of the community have varied understanding of these spiritual teachings. There are only some, such as Narad, who truly believe that the progress made in Auroville will have universal implications on human consciousness in totality and that the place should therefore invite contributions from outside the community as well.
Workers sew flowers made from paper onto a screen at the Auroville Papers workshop.
As of now, the new executives at Matrimandir have decided to complete the gardens of Life and Power by the set deadline, but not go ahead with the integrated designs for Light and Wealth given that working with designers from outside Auroville has added costs that were not accounted for in the initial estimate. Out of the twelve main gardens, four are already built and another two will be ready in August. For the remaining six, an internal design call (inviting only Aurovillians to participate) may be announced in the near future to ensure cost effectiveness and daily supervision on site. There is also the possibility of adopting one of the older sets of designs from the archives for the next six gardens, thereby avoiding lengthy processes of community feedback and approval. While the completion of all 12 gardens will help inch closer to The Mother’s vision for Auroville, there is frustration at the slow pace of reaching consensus, as well as the lack of unified support from within the township.
“Do not make the mistake of identifying youself with the designs manifesting in front of us.”
“Fifty-three years have passed by without much progress in the physical manifestation of the city,” the TDC (Town Development Council), a planning body made up of Aurovillians, stated in the October 2021 issue of Auroville Today. “The Crown being a fundamental component of the Galaxy, without manifesting it, the city cannot be manifested. This is imperative to protect Auroville from outside suburban sprawl and tackle the threats to our natural resources.” Auroville’s proximity to Chennai (the capital city of Tamil Nadu) and the Union Territory of Puducherry (an ex-colony of the French East India Company), as well as its growing popularity amongst tourists, is inviting numerous commercial investments and unregistered settlements in and around Auroville – on land that has already been designated for the development of its masterplan. These developments have particularly cropped up in the 1.25km-wide Green Belt of forest cover going around the township as set out in the Galaxy Plan. In addition to this, there are also farmland and houses owned by Tamil locals, legally registered with the state government, that lie within the 2000ha allocated to the city by the central government of India. It is estimated that the Foundation has only managed to acquire 850ha of that land so far.
Various committees have been formed in Auroville to study the situation and negotiate with villagers who have ancestral connections with the same land and whose families lived here before Auroville came to be. Technically, all the land required to develop the 5km-diameter township is already collectively owned by Auroville and none of it needs to be bought. However, the community has refrained from taking the extreme measure of forced eviction. “The big mistake we made in 1999 was to go to the central government to get approval for our masterplan, when land matters are a state subject in India,” notes Paul Vincent in an interview given to Auroville Today in August 2019. “Even if the state government constitutes a new Town Development Authority [for Auroville] and accepts our masterplan, a Detailed Development Plan (DDP) still needs to be created, which defines what will happen on each plot of land.”
Decorating papers.
Today, Aurovillians are still having to defend their claim on the land assigned to them by the central government, because locals have competing approvals issued by the Tamil Nadu government. Vincent, who has been involved with trying to protect Auroville’s physical integrity since 1975, explains that the land threats began around 1994 after many permanent structures had already been erected, prompting villagers to realise that land could be sold off at higher prices to the Aurovillians, who seemed to be serious about building a city. Where negotiations have not worked, land litigation cases are being heard in court. To add to the complexity of the situation, some Aurovillians themselves have purchased land in the Green Belt to develop commercial property or private residences. Some of them claim that these private deals are one way of securing land for Auroville, although they have continued to keep the property under their own names instead of donating it to the Foundation. Some of these same people also oppose the development of Crown Road, which would eventually be followed by the implementation of the rest of the Galaxy Plan and the loss of their private land. Other residents who have knowingly erected their houses in the path of Crown Road have been accused of hoarding land meant for the growth of the township.
“The manifestation of the ideals needs to be based on a shared vision and plan of action.”
Architects and planners in Auroville have taken an ecology-sensitive stand on the matter. They believe that the masterplan should be tweaked and adjusted to accommodate fully grown trees, water catchments and paths that have organically developed over time. One of them is Prashant Hedao, a landscape architect and urban planner who has been active in the bioregional planning of Auroville. “For a circular city like ours, a road connecting the four zones is needed,” he says. “I don’t think many people have a problem with the Crown; it is how and when it is to be implemented that needs to be discussed.” It is a debate that Hedao knows well, having been a member of TDC between 2007 and 2009. “This is not a city we should build in a hurry,” he told the local press in Auroville in 2021. “Where we should be putting our energies is in supporting activities and building institutions, which would attract the right kind of people to come here.”
Hedao, however, feels these inputs are not being incorporated into Auroville’s current planning approach because the TDC is fixated on the symbolism of the Galaxy Plan and its specific geometry, such as Crown Road, which is designed to be a perfect circle and 16.7m wide. Since Auroville is envisaged primarily as a cycling and pedestrian city, it is argued that the proposed road width will not add to its functionality, but rather invite more vehicles and thereby increase traffic rather than reducing it. Hedao asserts that all the sections of the proposed road should be studied and treated differently, based on context and need. Part of Crown Road goes through the Darkali forest area, close to a village that is infamous for anti-social activities such as alcohol abuse, as well as incidents of sexual assault. Adding a road through Darkali, which would likely be used by a limited number of Aurovillians, may pose a safety threat. Since the Galaxy Plan was developed for a total capacity of 50,000 people, Hedao argues, it should be executed in a phased manner as resident numbers grow.
A worker makes thali meals at the Solitude organic farm and kitchen.
“Auroville seems to have splintered into different groups with different views, each with their own set of priorities; and there are many ‘free’ spirits who do not wish to have rigid rules,” Mohan Chunkath, who served as the secretary to Auroville Foundation between 2016 and 2019, told the local press towards the end of his tenure. Chunkath must have read the situation well, as it was during his time that discussions around the township’s future started to play out. “So, while most residents seem to have a strong commitment to the ideals of Auroville and its deeper purpose, the manifestation of the ideals needs to be based on a shared vision and plan of action by which the township can be realised in the full capacity that it was conceived.” To some extent, the community is now coming together for another self-initiated dream-weaving process to discuss some of these pressing issues and strive to resolve them amicably. To bridge the increasing gap in opinions and review things critically, Aurovillian architects, planning experts and other residents are conducting studies on the Crown Road proposal and documenting the actualities on site. They have also engaged Vastu Shilpa Consultants, the architecture firm led by Pritzker Prize-winner B.V. Doshi, to prepare a detailed project report for the same stretch. The dream-weaving sessions, which have been happening since late January, are a collaborative effort to bring different ideas together and to decide on a common direction to follow. The participants are now listing some short-term goals to be worked upon and presenting an alternate proposal for Crown Road to the Foundation. “It is important to understand Auroville in totality, with its environmental setting and social impact on the surrounding villages,” says Hedao. “Here’s a city which can present an alternative model to the world since our mega cities are not proving to be the most sustainable.” Auroville has tested many eco-friendly methods of constructing buildings, roads and dams, and is working with the agenda of using solar energy as its prime source of generating electricity. The city is also revitalising natural sources of water and biodiversity, preserving indigenous seeds, and documenting local wisdom around the use of different trees and shrubs, as well as running outreach programmes for health and education in the surrounding villages.
While the Crown Road controversy may have exposed the limitations and challenges of community-driven governance, it is also proving to be a tool to fine-tune Auroville’s methods and clear the path for inevitable change. Aurovillians are now engaged in an internal dialogue to decide on the best way to progress. With added pressure from the state and central governments, and other external factors such as increasing tourist flow and land encroachments, the road to utopia is not smooth. Some residents are even considering going back to their home countries until harmony is restored and Auroville’s future is secured. While people are feeling forces close in from all directions, with predictions of a government takeover or the township becoming engulfed in suburban sprawl, many prefer to remain optimistic. There is an increasing awareness in the community of the need to “take our time to work together and not hurt each other in the process of reaching our goal,” observes Elvira from Germany, who works as a change-management consultant in Auroville. “I’m trying to listen to the different bubbles in this participatory movement, and to initiate that we talk to each other so we can create synergy. But we are a bunch of individualists, and there are too many leaders,” she laughs. “However, by letting myself be involved in this, I see new connections emerging around me. It’s magical; there is a feeling of belonging here.”
Words Rupal Rathore
Photographs Rebecca Conway
This article was originally published in Disegno #34. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.