Making Auroville accessible for everyone

On February, 28th, 1968 Mother gave the inspiring message, Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life. But for many years the reality seemed to be ‘Don’t come to Auroville if you are not young, strong and able-bodied”. This was understandable given the physical rigors of life in those early days. Nevertheless, it comes as a shock to realize that it took 41 years for Auroville to host the first workshop focused upon making Auroville welcoming for all seekers, able-bodied or not, which was surely the spirit of Mother’s invitation.

Not that there hadn’t been earlier attempts to wake up the community. In 2001 Christel, a regular visitor confined to a wheelchair, said she had tried to convince architects and town planners to make Auroville barrier-free in order to make it more accessible for people like her, but to no effect. A few years later, Alex confirmed that nothing had changed. “It’s difficult for a wheelchair guy like me to move around in Auroville,” he said. “The cycle paths we like to move on are riddled with bunds and potholes and often have sharp curves and barriers. For a cyclist this is no problem. For someone in a wheelchair, it’s plain hell. The alternative is to drive on the main roads but that’s playing with your life.”

But his main criticism was reserved for the inaccessibility of Auroville’s public buildings and recreational areas. “If Auroville wants to live up to its ideals, it should provide proper access for disabled people,” he said.

One of the residents who took up the challenge was Susmita. Partially different-abled from birth, she knew first hand the challenges faced by those less able to negotiate our roads and buildings. In 2009 she invited people from Samarthyam, a Delhi-based organization specializing in facilitating accessibility in buildings, transport and public places, to visit Auroville and raise awareness. During a three day workshop, they defined a “barrier-free environment” as “creating and maintaining environments in which people can participate in ways which are equitable, dignified, maximize independence, conserve energy, and are safe and affordable”. Barrier-free access, they stressed, involves much more than constructing a ramp or a handicapped toilet. It requires taking into account the whole environment, including the need for signage, special flooring, lighting, colour contrasts and emergency evacuation routes.

And who benefits? Not only the disabled, but anybody with reduced mobility, like people with short-term ailments, senior citizens, pregnant women, asthmatics, those with heart disease, and families with young children.

Samarthyam clarified the legal obligations of public buildings to provide accessibility to the differently-abled, but admitted that many of the provisions of the relevant Act have not been implemented as individual states need only implement them if it is within their ‘economic capacity’. Finally, they invited participants to be blindfolded and then negotiate the Town Hall. Even though some knew the building well, it was a frightening, and illuminating, experience for them to be so incapacitated.

Samarthyam returned in 2011 to train Aurovilians and others to become accessible auditors. Participants were put in wheelchairs and then asked to audit public places like the Town Hall and Matrimandir for accessibility. The results were damning.

This stimulated Susmita and her ‘Accessible Auroville’ group to greater efforts. With Srinivasan, she produced “Sometimes I can fly”, a deeply moving documentary of Alex’s struggles to get around Auroville in a wheelchair. The film subsequently won an award. Later the group brought out a booklet which highlighted the architectural barriers to mobility in Auroville in a humorous way.

In 2016 Auroville’s accessible bus, the first one in this part of India, was inaugurated by Dr. Karan Singh, and in 2019, Susmita invited Kiran Bedi, then Lieutenant-Governor of Pondicherry, to inaugurate an exhibition on accessibility in the Town Hall. It was a memorable morning. Prior to her arrival, Susmita and her group invited Aurovilians to either sit in or push wheelchairs from the Solar Kitchen to the Town Hall to give them a sense of the struggles involved, and following the inauguration Srinivasan put on a play in which blindfolded customers in a restaurant were served by differently-abled people. It was both funny and deeply touching.

In other words, there have been a number of events over the past decade aimed at awakening the community to the need to make Auroville a more accessible place for everyone. Has it had an effect?

“Something has changed,” admits Susmita. She says that now people call her when they need a wheelchair or advice about how to convert their living space or community. “Recently Guy from Quiet Healing Centre urgently asked me to make the Centre more accessible as a scuba diving workshop for the differently-abled was planned. Thanks to the work of Alexandre, a skilled technician in Adaptive Technology who works with me now, the Centre is now at least 90% accessible.” Susmita also notes that the Visitors Center has made major strides towards becoming fully accessible, mentioning the specially adapted toilets, ramps and clear signage.

On the whole, however, Susmita feels nothing much has changed over the last decade.

She mentions that while some architects consult her regarding making their structures more accessible, they rarely follow her advice, and that while she has offered a number of times to discuss the Auroville Accessibility code (see box) with different town planning groups, they have not responded. Moreover two of the buildings – Matrimandir and the Town Hall – which were seen to have major accessibility issues by the Samathyam team in 2011, have still not been modified. For example, the ramp leading up to Le Morgan restaurant at the Town Hall is still too steep for wheelchairs and lacks safety features, and there is still no wheelchair access to the second floor of the Town Hall.

Accessing the Matrimandir remains even more challenging for the differently-abled. The first two levels are inaccessible for those in a wheelchair, and the entrances and Lotus Pond below can only be reached by ramps which are far too steep for wheelchairs. While the Matrimandir management says they always willing to assist the differently-abled to access the structure, this misses the point that they don’t want to be made a special case, to be “Carried up to the Chamber like a maharajah on his throne” as one of them put it. They want to be able to access the Chamber under their own efforts, without fuss or attention. “If I’m in a wheelchair and I can go everywhere without your help, I feel I am a human being just like you,” points out Susmita.

While some places, like Savitri Bhavan, Cinema Paradiso and the Auroville Foundation office, are easily accessible, other public places in Auroville that remain inaccessible or very challenging for the differently-abled include the Kala Kendra art gallery, La Terrace restaurant, SAWCHU, CRIPA and Pitanga. In addition, there are large apartment complexes, like Humanscapes, Creativity and Maitreye Two, where there is no accessibility to the upper floors. And while Kalpana does have a lift, Susmita says it is too narrow for Indian wheelchairs.

Why has so little been done?

Architects and building managers often cite the additional cost of making a structure accessible. But Samarthyam estimates that making a building fully accessible only costs an extra one to two per cent if accessibility is incorporated into the design from the beginning (retrofitting existing buildings is more expensive). And many significant changes, like making toilets accessible, lowering counters, providing easily negotiable footpaths and removing barriers to mobility, are not expensive. Even a small detail like ensuring the door on a toilet opens outwards rather than inwards can make a huge difference to somebody with mobility issues.

In 2010, a member of the town planning group suggested that new guidelines for constructions should specify that an extra percentage be included in the building’s budget to cover the cost of fully accessibility. And another Aurovilian suggested that a special fund be set up to make existing public buildings fully accessible. Nothing has happened.

Sauro, another member of the group at that time, commented “L’Avenir should take the lead in drawing up a code of practice ensuring full accessibility of public buildings”. The code exists, but is seemingly ignored.

Apart from financial considerations, the belief that making a building more accessible will make it less beautiful also seems to be a concern for some architects. It certainly seemed to be a major factor in Roger’s resistance to making the Matrimandir more accessible. But Alexandre points out that the Matrimandir can be made fully accessible without compromising on its appearance. For example, he points out that in India now there are simple and elegant chair-lifts which can transport the differently-abled up the first two stairways and fold away when not in use.

However, the main blockage to making Auroville more accessible is not financial or aesthetic. It is the mindset that fails to comprehend the difficulties faced by those who are differently-abled or temporarily mobility or sight compromised.

“There is no understanding, no empathy, for those who have difficulty accessing our buildings, guest houses and public spaces,” says Susmita. “People cannot imagine the hurdles these people face on a daily basis. This is why the Samarthyam team stressed that the first thing that has to happen is to pull down the mental barriers. Once this has been done, they said, the physical barriers will come down more easily.”

“It’s about a new way of thinking, seeing. But there is no impulse to change until people experience these difficulties for themselves,” notes Alexandre. Of course, this will increasingly happen because today a significant proportion of Auroville’s population is over sixty and likely, at some stage, to be physically incapacitated.

Susmita gives a recent example of a lack of empathy. Susmita asked the BCC to pay Rs 80,000 to cover the insurance of the accessible bus that takes people to Pondicherry as COVID had impacted their daily takings, but the BCC refused, telling her, “You don’t need to go to Pondicherry”.

“They don’t seem to understand that the bus is used by those who cannot, or are afraid to, go to Pondicherry on their own, people who, like me, need to visit the Ashram regularly. The BCC people have no such problem as most of them have independent transport and can go wherever and whenever they wish.”

The other mindset that needs to be changed, says Susmita, is the discriminatory mindset that differently-abled people are somehow inferior to ‘normal’ people. “Different doesn’t mean ‘less’. For example, if you are blind you may develop other capacities which far exceed those of sighted people. It’s all about embracing diversity.”

Susmita admits that for 50 years she was ashamed to show her hand because she felt a little bit different from others. “But Goupi was my saviour, he helped me to accept my body. Now I am not shy to show that I am different and to ask for help if I needed.”

Discrimination also happens when people feel they cannot cope when confronted with somebody with a disability. Susmita recalls a conversation with a sadhak outside the Ashram. “I was with Alex, who was in his wheelchair. But this man couldn’t even look at him: he couldn’t acknowledge his existence.”

Susmita says that now they are planning a family support group for Auroville families who may have children that our schools cannot cope with because of physical disabilities or autism, “so these children don’t feel put aside”.

So what can be done to make Auroville more accessible?

Samarthyam point out everybody can begin to cultivate this awareness. They encourage people to look with new eyes at the buildings they work and play in. Are they accessible for all users? If not, what practical changes could be made?

“The Auroville Accessibility Code gives clear guidance,” says Susmita, “but fundamentally it’s a matter of goodwill and of education. We have to start with the families and the schools and also get the architects and the urban planners to understand that accessibility means inclusion, creating an inclusive society.

“Accessibility means giving dignity and freedom to everyone. It’s about accepting, celebrating, differences in abilities. As long as we don’t accept this kind of diversity, we don’t live in a city of the future, the city to which Mother called all those in 1968 who aspire for a higher and truer life.”

Box:

Auroville Accessibility Code for all public buildings, areas and facilities

1. Safe ascents and descents with ramps, made according to accessibility standard specifications. 

2. Ramps at entrances and exits to public buildings

3. Handrails at different heights, for different users, on steps and ramps. 

4. Signage supplemented with pictograms, Braille, sounds, textures.

5. All doors have a minimum width of 90cm. 

6. Non-slip (anti-skid) flooring in all public areas. 

7. Specially adapted drinking-water facilities in all public areas.  

8. An accessible unisex toilet in every public building and, in the case of buildings over three stories, accessible toilets on alternate floors. 

9. Guesthouses to have at least two rooms at ground level with integrated toilet and bathing facilities. 

10. For new communities, at least two fully accessible ground-level flats. 

11. Public transport vehicles are now obliged by law to have devices to assist people getting on and off.  Buses and other public vehicles must be adapted, if necessary.

12. Safe, fully accessible pathways for pedestrians, including wheelchair users, people with babies and small children, elderly people, people with physical difficulties, and others, in parallel with major cycle paths.

13. Balconies on public buildings to have safety barriers. 

14. Wherever there are cattle-grids, accessible entrances for people in wheelchairs or on crutches, those carrying heavy or awkward objects etc. to be constructed.

15. Educational activities: interviews, research, movies and dramatizations for all adults, young people and children here to raise awareness of accessibility issues, with a view to establishing and maintaining a caring, inclusive society.

Accessible Auroville and L’Avenir d’Auroville, March 2010