The Genesis of the Auroville Foundation Act

Glimpses of the early organization of Auroville

The Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS), an Ashram organization, had proposed to the Mother, when the idea of Auroville began to take shape in the early sixties, to take care of Her project. She accepted the offer and therefore the Society provided in the earliest stages a first stable framework, both legally and economically, through which basic administrative tasks could be handled.

This administration was in Pondicherry and, soon enough, communication became rather difficult with the few Aurovilians who were trying to settle on the Auroville site. That the relationship between the early Aurovilians, particularly those coming from abroad, and the office holders of the Auroville official administration in Pondicherry should have been uneasy is not so surprising. Most of the Auroville administrators in Pondicherry were Ashramites, not so young or even elderly, used to a certain way of functioning in the context of the Ashram and generally expecting to be treated with a modicum of respect in view of their seniority. Many of the young foreigners who had come were rather brash, impregnated with the liberal culture of many western countries where youth was actually in reaction against the establishment.

There was also a deep contrast between the projections and plans made for Auroville in various offices in Pondicherry, which were rather on the grand scale, and the stark reality of the day-to-day life of the pioneers on the Auroville site, who were battling for survival on a severely eroded land, devoid of trees, where all too often procuring enough water for daily needs and watering the plantations – and protecting the same against herds of cows and goats – was a daily struggle.

After various organizational experiments, including a one year long experience with a Comité d’Administration d’Auroville (CAA), Mother was clearly dissatisfied and decided in February 1971 to give the responsibility of the day-to-day administration of Auroville to Shyamsunder, making him her Secretary for Auroville Affairs. He worked under her close guidance.

When Shyamsunder took over the direct administration of Auroville, he established what became known as the Beach Office in a large room on the ground floor of one big SAS building on the Pondicherry seaside. Soon enough, the residents of Auroville, most of whom quickly came to respect and have confidence in Mother’s chosen intermediary, took the habit of coming to this office to submit their projects and problems. Shyamsunder, in turn, would see the Mother every day and take Her guidance whenever necessary. It gave him a special place and role in the complex hierarchy of Auroville’s early management, which included the Chief Architect, Roger Anger, Navajata, who was the SAS General Secretary and main fund-raiser for Auroville, plus a number of associates of these main actors. One common characteristic was that none of them was residing in Auroville, which contributed to a developing sense of estrangement from the side of the residents.

For some years, mostly due to The Mother’s presence and to some extent due to the role played by Shyamsunder, the frustrations of an increasing population of residents were kept in check, despite the accumulating difficulties. But after May 20, 1973, the Mother was no longer available for guidance and advice, a fact which contributed to the residents’ growing feeling that they should develop their own organization.

The registration of the Auroville Society and its aftermath

On November 4th 1975, seven Aurovilians registered an Auroville Society in an attempt to create an independent legal body for Auroville, which could receive funds independently from the SAS and offer the opportunity to develop a new internal organization for Auroville. This was done out of sheer frustration at seeing no improvement in the way Auroville was administered by the SAS, particularly by its chairman. For instance, despite promises that two Aurovilians would be co-opted as members of the SAS Executive Committee, it was not implemented, reflecting probably the deep-seated aversion of Navajata to share power at any level. At the same time, the economic situation was deteriorating, making the life of residents quite precarious. Development projects were suffering and, in addition, all too often funds raised by the residents themselves for various projects but by necessity channeled through SAS accounts suffered a 50% cut to honour an agreement made by the SAS with the State Bank of India that half of all funds raised for Auroville would go to reimburse the large debt incurred since the beginning of Auroville. So frustration was growing deep, and this led some Aurovilians to decide to act. This action of registering a Society would be the first salvo in what would be a long legal battle for the autonomy of Auroville…

Both the SAS and the Ashram authorities wanted the new Society dissolved. There were several meetings between all the parties, but no resolution. Finally, the SAS filed an affidavit to obtain an injunction against the new Society claiming that, in a legal sense, all the land and properties of Auroville belonged to the SAS, and that the residents of Auroville had no right to carry on any activities except those allotted to them by the SAS.

The situation deteriorated rapidly. Now foreign Aurovilians could only get their visa guarantee through the SAS by signing a statement of support for the SAS, the SAS withheld funds and leased land that had been under the care of Aurovilians to local villagers, and two Aurovilians received quit notices and had to leave India. Finally, on a complaint lodged by the SAS on bogus charges, eight Aurovilians were arrested and sent to jail.

At this point, the Central Government sent Kireet Joshi to assess the situation and report back. The Aurovilians hoped this would lead to government intervention that would free them from control of the SAS, but then Indira Gandhi lost the general election and a new government was formed. Soon after, some Aurovilians managed to meet the new Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, who said he would direct that important Auroville matters should be referred to him before any decision was taken. But the new government did not take further action.

The government gets involved again

Then rather surprisingly, Indira Gandhi came back to power – since after the Emergency and her defeat in 1977 we did not have much hope she could possibly return to power. Her party won the elections early January 1980 after the collapse of the Janata Dal government. She soon called an advisor who was very close to her. His name was Sir C.P.N. Singh. He was someone who had already helped Auroville a lot and she asked him to become Governor of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state of India. C.P.N. Singh, who was already quite old (he was about 80) told her [something like this], “You know, politics for me… I have had my share; at present that is not what preoccupies me, I prefer spiritual life and I am preoccupied about the situation in Auroville.”

Indira Gandhi told him: “Please do what I am asking you. I need you in Uttar Pradesh [the most politically difficult state] – I promise we will do something for Auroville.”

So that was one of the reasons we came to know why Indira Gandhi got quickly involved with Auroville. But she herself had already shown personal interest in Auroville and she had a sincere devotion for the Mother. Therefore she was motivated to act to try to rescue the project. As a result, at the end of the year 1980, around November 12, one could see newspaper headlines. Auroville was big news: the Government had promulgated the Auroville Emergency Provisions Ordinance for a temporary takeover of Auroville.

Why an ordinance? There was a secret story behind this ordinance. It had been promulgated just before the opening of the parliamentary session. Normally, the government does not do that. An ordinance is passed when the Parliament will not be in session for some months or at least several weeks. But here the winter session was going to start very soon. But the Government knew that there was a lot of support for the SAS in the Parliament because Navajata had many friends and a considerable amount of contacts everywhere. There was a perception that if the government tried to pass a law on Auroville in the Parliament, it would be quite difficult, there would likely be lots of amendments proposed by SAS supporters and the desired result would not be obtained. Therefore, it was decided to go for an ordinance because when an ordinance is promulgated, Parliament, which must ratify an ordinance within 6 months, cannot amend it; it can reject it, of course, but otherwise it must ratify it as it is.

By December 9, the Ordinance was replaced by the Auroville Emergency Provisions Act, which was passed after a few days of debates by both Houses. One of the speakers was Dr. Karan Singh, who said , “This is now a leap into the unknown, as it were. It could conceivably be the most important single Bill ever passed by this House because it deals not simply with material manifestation, not even with the collective human manifestation, but it deals with something which is still beyond the ken of human consciousness, it deals with an idea which is an arrow into the future.”

The SAS had meanwhile launched a counter-attack against the government involving itself in Auroville by registering a case in the High Court of Calcutta. One can consider the way they did it as a kind of perjury, as they gave as the main ground for it the fact that Auroville was like a religious denomination and the writings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo were basically religious. It was quite a colossal perjury but it was in fact the only thing they could do to win the case. Why? Because if Auroville were to be recognized by the Court as a religious institution, according to the Indian Constitution the Government of India had no right to interfere.

So a court case was launched by the SAS in Calcutta. … Court cases in India can last a long time. But something quite extraordinary happened: the case was very quickly transferred to the Supreme Court. They took it very seriously, forming a constitutional bench of five judges, including the Chief Justice as it was seen as a constitutional case. And, quite soon, the case began.

You have to understand the situation: Kireet Joshi, who had been given by the Government the charge of the Auroville file, had also to deal with his work as a high functionary in the Education Ministry, a considerable charge. Yet he had to manage the Auroville case, which was also very demanding. … Dealing with the Supreme Court case proved to be very exhausting. The SAS had quite a lot of money and they hired one of the best lawyers of India, Shri Soli Sorabjee, who later became Solicitor General of India and who, still today, writes a column every Sunday in the Indian Express. He is known to be a legal luminary and a good upright person. In this SAS case, he pleaded remarkably well. I remember Frederick – who was often in Delhi for the case – telling me : “At a certain moment, we both went out of the Supreme Court building and I saw Kireet turn towards me and in his glance I could see that we both felt the same, that the case was going very badly for us.” Soli Sorabjee had made a brilliant submission and they felt that the judges had been powerfully impressed.

When it is a Government case, the main lawyer is a government advocate. The government lawyer was a Mr. Parasaran who, initially, did not seem to understand much, and Kireet and others felt quite concerned. He clearly did not make the grade in front of Soli Sorabjee. It got to the point where, the day before Parasaran was due to appear and plead our case, during the night, as Kireet told me later, he prayed to The Mother in (approximately) the following terms: “I do not know what is your will in this case, but things don’t seem to be going too well. I have a feeling that something decisive should be told to these judges so that they may understand the difference between religion and yoga.” That was indeed the crux of the matter in this case: how to clarify the difference between Religion and Yoga.

Kireet then went to sleep and, as he recalled later, he had a dream in which he saw a kind of parchment on which a formula was written. The dream was so strong and so precise that he could remember the formula in the morning and write it down. When he met Parasaran before his submission to the court, he told him that it was crucial that he should very precisely and clearly pronounce that during the course of his pleading. The formula is the following:

“Philosophy, religion and yoga – all aim at God, but the method of philosophy is that of ratiocination; the method of religion is creedal belief, rituals and ceremonies; and the method of yoga is to arrive at a change of consciousness through change of consciousness.”

Kireet later said that when Parasaran did give that formula clarifying the difference between philosophy, religion and yoga, he heard the Chief Justice say: “That’s it!” From that crucial moment, the situation changed, things moved in a more positive way.

Indeed on November 8, 1982, the decision of the Supreme Court was given. Out of five judges, four said that Sri Aurobindo’s writings did not constitute a religion.

The temporary government takeover

The temporary government takeover of Auroville resulted in a period of greater stability. Two government administrators took up residence here and an International Advisory Council (IAC) consisting of very eminent people – including J.R.D. Tata, Narasimha Rao, the then External Affairs Minister, and the Director General of UNESCO with Kireet Joshi as the Member-Secretary – was appointed to advise the government on Auroville matters. Specifically, the IAC would try to ensure that that the ideals for which Auroville had been created were encouraged and that the residents had the freedom to develop activities to accomplish programmes envisaged in The Charter.

However, it was not a permanent solution. Since the Act was only temporary, there was always the possibility that when it lapsed the situation would revert to the status quo and the SAS would once again be in control of Auroville. The Act was extended a number of times, but by 1988 it was clear that it would not be extended again.

A Task Force was set up to work with the community and with Kireet to find a solution. In mid-August 1988, three members of the Task Force, Alain Bernard, Frederick and Krishna Tewari, went to Delhi.

Surprising request for a draft bill

On Monday August 20th, 1988, Shri Baldev Mahajan, the Auroville administrator, who was now working under Mr. Veera Raghavan, the high functionary now in charge of the Auroville file, called us to tell us approximately the following: “There is a need for a draft of an Auroville bill. It is already three months since the Government has decided that such a draft should be prepared. But Veera Raghavan has done nothing and now he is asking me to prepare it. So now I am asking you to provide me with a draft.”

We said : “OK, but when do you need it?”– “In two days!!!”

We went out quite flabbergasted, wondering what to do, if we should call some people from Auroville, like Sanjeev, who had some legal knowledge, to work out something. We went back to Kireet’s residence at Talkatora Road and we told him: “We have just seen Mahajan and he told us that he needs a draft law for Auroville in just two days!”

Kireet’s reaction was typical of his calm demeanour. He just said: “All right”. And he began immediately to dictate. As Frederick has said in an interview, he just began by a long list of “Whereas, Whereas”, which is found at the beginning of any law.

When Kireet was asked how he could have dictated this draft law in less than 48 hours, he simply said: “I was ready”. It is indeed true that he had personally worked a lot on this question, that he had consulted lots of people, including, of course, many Aurovilians, and it is why he was able to do what he did. During the long moments of dictation, during which we were present most of the time, he would quite often stop and discuss alternatives with us.

We went back to Baldev Mahajan with the draft before the time limit of 48 hours that he had set, on August 22nd, in the morning. This episode is another example of remarkable happenings in favour of Auroville: normally, drafting the law should have been made by some official in the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Moreover, Kireet, at that time, was no longer in the administration. His contract, to be renewed every year, was not renewed after March 31st 1988 due to some manipulation from hostile bureaucrats. So the fact that the making of the draft bill was delivered into his hands in August was a first miracle, which happened thanks to Mahajan who boldly took it upon himself to ask us for the draft.

A very serious problem comes up

After three days, on August 25th, first alert, we learn that Veera Raghavan had added in the draft law an article which would make mandatory the consultation of the SAS for the constitution of the Governing Board. This could be thought as a relatively minor modification but Kireet took it as a very serious setback. Since the SAS people were on the spot, near Auroville and in Pondicherry, they would always be considered as experts and their suggestions would carry a lot of weight with bureaucrats, which may practically mean that they would be able to choose most of the members of a Governing Board in charge of Auroville affairs.

So it was very serious and unacceptable, but what to do was not so clear. It had been approved by the new HRD Minister, who was no longer Narasimha Rao, as there had been a Government reshuffle. The new Minister was Shiv Shankar, who did not know anything about Auroville, and he had effectively approved this insertion of the mandatory consultation requirement. More alarming, we heard that Narasimha Rao had also approved the insertion and that was an even more serious blow as it meant that only the then Prime Minister, Shri Rajiv Gandhi [who had become Prime Minister after the assassination of his mother in 1984, eds.] could do something about it. But the problem was that it was extremely difficult to contact him.

But then Kireet was called by Narasimha Rao regarding a file which had nothing to do with Auroville. It gave Kireet the opportunity to ask Narasimha Rao (who was now again Minister for External Affairs) whether he did approve the insertion of the SAS mandatory consultation requirement in the Auroville draft bill. Narasimha Rao said that he did not approve of any such insertion. He added that Kireet should speak to Veera Raghavan and tell him that it was not true that he approved. Kireet phoned Veera Raghavan and told him what Narasimha Rao had said. Veera Raghavan got very angry and told Kireet that all these politicians were lying and that Narasimha Rao had approved the insertion. He took the opportunity to tell Kireet that he felt it was very unfair to completely exclude the SAS from Auroville: “These people have worked a lot for Auroville and you people are not prepared to give them anything.”

The situation had become quite critical. We knew that the draft bill was about to be given to the official printing press so that it could be presented to Parliament. If it were to be printed with the insertion, it would make things very difficult.

Kireet told us that he did not know what to do. The only person who could do something about it was the Prime Minister but there was no way to contact him. If the bill were to be passed like that, it would be as if we were giving Auroville on a plate to the SAS. He added very gravely, “At this point I do not know what is Mother’s will.” He then went to his room to pray and meditate.

Hardly five minutes later, there was a phone call for Kireet, in which he was told that he was expected to come to a function in which the Prime Minister would be present. Kireet was a member of the administrative committee of a school which had been selected to participate in an important Hindu festival, the Raksha Bandhan, with the Prime Minister.

So Kireet came out of his room and told us: “Tomorrow there is an opportunity to meet the PM.” It was felt as something rather miraculous, suddenly everything was open again. But we were not sure how to proceed. As the three of us, Frederick, Krishna and I, had met Rajiv Gandhi only about a week ago, we could not really hope to see him again easily. So we wrote a letter that the president of the school – Ms Pratibha Singh who was the daughter of Sir CPN Singh – would give to him when he came for the function. In the letter we reminded him that he had told us earlier that he should be informed of any problems cropping up regarding the proposed Act and indeed there were serious problems for which we wanted to see him again.

So the next day we went again to the residence of the PM and waited outside, hoping for the best. Kireet went to the function, the PM came and when he sat down to listen to a song by the schoolchildren, our letter was put on his knees by Pratibha Singh. He asked her what it was. She answered that it was about Auroville and that there were problems. The PM said that they were about to do the necessary to solve the problems of Auroville. She repeated that there were problems created by the SAS people and that he should agree to see us. Then Rajiv opened the letter and later told his security people to allow us to come in.

The small ceremony with the school was soon over and Rajiv Gandhi was about to leave. He went over to Kireet to greet him and shake hands. He turned away to go. Kireet later said that at that moment he prayed to the Mother: “Is that all? Is it what you want? Let Thy will be done.”

Suddenly Rajiv, who had already left, came back and took Kireet’s hand. He told him: “Kireetji, you know that we are preparing an Aurobindo law?” (Strangely, he spoke of an Aurobindo law). Kireet answered: “No Sir, an Auroville law”. The PM said: “I am told that there are problems about this, is it true?” “Yes Sir, it will be a disaster”, Kireet answered. Then, remarkably, Rajiv said: “You only know what Indiraji wanted for Auroville. I want you to take charge. Call Vasudev (additional secretary in the PM’s office) and do the necessary. I will not move this till I know you are satisfied.”

Despite the fact that for a few months Kireet had not been part any longer of the government administration, the PM put him in charge. It shows how much he sincerely wanted to do what his mother Indira Gandhi had wanted for Auroville…

The J.R.D. Tata episode

Yet the day after, on Sunday, Kireet was not entirely satisfied. He felt that there still were some modifications introduced by Veera Raghavan which were problematic for the future. Kireet told Frederick that, at this moment, the only person who could still help was Tata, the well-known great industrialist and member of the Auroville International Advisory Council. He asked Frederick to call him. Frederick was quite close to Tata, whom he had often met and was calling “Jeh” (for Jehangir) as only few intimates were doing.

Frederick said, “All right, I call Tata, to tell him what?”

“You tell him to come.”

“Yes, but when?”

“Now, immediately, it is urgent”.

I can still see the scene: Frederick takes the phone and calls Tata, whom he gets quite quickly. And he tells him: we are in Delhi for this Auroville bill, there are problems as the draft that we had given had been seriously modified, it has become quite a big problem and there is a feeling that he should come as only his intervention could save the day….

So Tata says: “All right, but when?”

Frederick: “Well, Jeh, right now…”

According to Frederick, Tata’s sarcastic reaction was something like, “Ah, of course, Frederick, no problems, I am only the chairman of Tatas and Sons, I am quite free, with no appointments whatsoever, of course I can just come immediately…”

“Yes, Jeh, I know, but it is very very critical and…”

“All right, give me Kireet…”

Again I remember that, when Kireet took the phone, he sat straighter, as if suddenly standing at attention, and he listened to Tata. What we heard was only something like, “Yes, Sir, yes Sir, it is very necessary that you come, Sir, all right, Sir…”

There were several reasons for this urgent call: Tata was a member of the Auroville International Advisory Council, which gave him the right to intervene. He also had great personal prestige in India. Kireet knew that Veera Raghavan had a special respect for Tata and, further, that, after his retirement which would come quite soon, Raghavan was hoping to find some position in the Tata organization.

What is really admirable is that, the same evening, Tata came. It showed the depth of his commitment to Auroville, as he must have had to cancel all his appointments for the following Monday.

We went to see him in his big suite in the Taj hotel (part of the Tata group). The meetings with Tata would usually begin with him being quite gruff, questioning rather sharply about the necessity of this or that, but, after a while, when he was satisfied to some extent at least, he would become friendly and accommodating. Kireet explained the problems and the points that needed to be modified in the draft bill. The next morning, we heard that Veera Raghavan had accepted everything. We supposed that Tata had asked him to come and told him what was to be done. Apparently Raghavan did not dare to object…

The last suspenseful days

On September 1st, 1988, the Auroville Foundation bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. There were no problems. We were present. What was moving was the reading of the Auroville Charter by one MP, Mrs Najda Heptullah, member of a highly regarded Muslim political family – her father had been Vice-President of India. We later went to thank her for that nice gesture.

Then there was a serious technical problem. The vote in the Rajya Sabha took place on a Thursday. The last day of the parliamentary session was on Monday September 5th. There is a rule that there must be at least three working days after the vote of a bill in one of the chambers of Parliament before it can be introduced in the other chamber. Friday, Saturday, Sunday do not count as working days in Parliament, so, theoretically, the Auroville bill could not be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday, which was also the last day of the parliamentary session. It was really a big problem. If the bill voted by the Rajya Sabha was not voted by the Lok Sabha, it would remain in suspense for about two months in the public domain, and of course we knew this would give the SAS all the time to try to manipulate at all levels and influence many Lok Sabha MPs to vote against the bill. Not only would getting a positive vote become uncertain but at the minimum there would be a big risk of problematic amendments to the bill. So we felt quite tense as we could see that this was quite a serious problem.

The General-Secretary of the Lok Sabha at that time was Shri Subhash Kashyap, a close friend of Kireet – he would become later a member of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation. He took it upon himself to put the Auroville bill on the list of bills to be passed that Monday. The last one, in fact. Then we heard that a zealous functionary below him had removed the Auroville bill from the list, precisely on account of the missing working days. But Kashyap again put it on the list!

Meanwhile something quite remarkable had occurred: there had been for a few days a kind of parliamentary strike by the Opposition who decided to boycott regular parliamentary work on account of the mishandling of some local MPs in Andhra Pradesh by the police. Huge scandal! Parliamentary boycott! The opposition parties united and decided to abstain from any work till reparation was obtained. But Parliament was still in session and, with hardly any debates, bills were passed quickly, a fact which did open the possibility for the Auroville bill to be on the list for that fateful Monday.

The final triumph

On the afternoon of Monday September 5, Frederick, Krishna and myself were in the gallery of the Lok Sabha. I must say that we were quite tense. We were hoping that this Auroville bill would be put to vote.

As is common in many parliaments often few MPs are present and they represent their colleagues party-wise during the vote. This was the case in the Lok Sabha when the vote begun, article by article, after an introduction by the Minister of HRD and a brief discussion. Then, suddenly, we saw lots of MPs both from the majority and the opposition coming in. The MPs of the opposition came in wearing yellow scarves, as yellow is a colour associated with Andhra Pradesh. The Lok Sabha was filling up quickly with MPs from both sides. I felt quite nervous as I was wondering if this would not lead to the disruption of the on-going vote. We knew that there was to be a statement by Chidambaram, who was then Minister of State for Home Affairs, about the incident in Andhra Pradesh and they were coming for that. The statement was to be followed by a debate and a vote. So they all came, including some members in wheelchairs.

Contrary to my fear, the entering parliamentarians did not disrupt the vote, they just speeded it on. They added their voices so that the “Yah” for each article became louder and louder – and surely there were among them quite a few friends of the SAS but it did not make a difference in the ‘Yah’ momentum. When the speaker called for the final vote, for the bill in its totality after the vote article by article, I can still remember the enormous and resounding YAH that came out from the full Lok Sabha.

I must say that I saw the whole scene as an extraordinary maya, that Mother’s force which we felt so strongly operating during these strange days had managed to get a unanimous approval from a full Lok Sabha for the Auroville Bill at the very end of this parliamentary session. I remember that Frederick was sitting a few seats from me on the left, and we looked at each other rather bewildered. It was difficult to believe that it was over, that it had been done!