The Joy of Learning

The Auroville of today is a much more complex place than it was even 20 years ago. The average Aurovilian’s knowledge of what is going on in areas like the economy, town planning and governance is limited, and it is not always easy to obtain information to increase one’s knowledge. There are many reasons for this, but one consequence is that many of our perspectives, opinions and strategies are based upon partial or inaccurate knowledge.

The ‘Joy of Learning’ series is an attempt to remedy this by providing a platform where important knowledge about the major sectors can be shared with the whole community. This is just one of the experiments promoted by the Auroville Campus Initiative (ACI) to contribute to the organization and development of adult education in Auroville. One of the usual ways in which knowledge is shared in this community is when it is required to solve a ‘hot’ issue, but as these situations are often emotionally charged it often distorts both the provision and reception of information. Consequently, the approach here is to disconnect learning from the need to solve a particular problem, although the hope is that better understanding of the issues will lead to new approaches to our most difficult challenges. It is also an attempt to create a learning environment where acquiring important information becomes something light, fun.

The first session

The ‘Joy of Learning’ series began with two sessions that focused on the Auroville economy. In the first session, Divya highlighted some of the unusual features of our economy. These include that the land and capital are commonly-owned, that our labour force is made up of voluntary workers, and that we share a common spiritual aim. These, she feels, are components of a unique and precious system.

However, there is general unclarity about how we want the Auroville economy to develop or how to cope with the present challenges it faces. This, she believes, is because of a certain cognitive dissonance which many of us experience. Speaking of her own experience, she explained, “I have not studied in Ashram schools. I come from the mainstream, privately held, private capital, private ownership, salaried world and I was thrown into the Auroville system of commonly-owned assets. These different influences have left many of us with a hodgepodge of understanding of what should we do with our economic system.”

For Divya, the most important aspect of the ideal Auroville economy, and one that sets it apart from conventional economies, is the intention to build collective rather than private wealth. And, she concluded, “We have to be very careful that we don’t just copy blindly the mainstream system and kill the very system for which we came.”

Lyle began his presentation by identifying Auroville’s major economic aims. These include establishing and sustaining a self-supporting city of 50,000 people; providing for everyone’s material needs, not according to notions of right and equality but on the basis of the most elementary necessities; and eliminating the exchange of money between Aurovilians. He pointed out, however, that we haven’t really examined what some of these aims mean. What does it mean, for example, to provide everybody with the most elementary necessities?

Turning to money flows over the past decade, he noted that commercial units and guesthouses, which are supposed to be our most productive sectors, are seeing a per capita decline in growth when the figures adjusted for inflation. This is one indication that the Auroville economy is not as healthy as it should be.

But what to do about this? “The problem,” said Lyle, “is we don’t know enough about the Auroville economy to know what to do next, we do not have agreed upon indicators to evaluate our economy and no economic planning is taking place.” He concluded that we have to create the means to think strategically.

The second session

The second in the ‘Joy of Learning’ series included three presentations. Gilles spoke about the evolution of Mother’s vision of the Auroville economy, Alain identified the major landmarks in the development of the economy and Nicole provided an overview of Auroville’s service sector.

Gilles noted that the original conditions for residence in Auroville allowed people accepted by The Mother to purchase lifetime possession of plots of land in the township on which they could build their houses, although it was clear that all the land would belong to the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS). In those early days, there were no other material conditions laid down for residing in Auroville. In fact, initially Mother spoke of Auroville as being an experiment in no more than a “slightly more ideal way of life” and money, she said, would continue to circulate “as long as human habits are such”. Giving Aurofood as an example of an Auroville unit, she implied that private businesses would be allowed in Auroville.

In 1969 things changed completely. Now Mother said the Aurovilians would not have money and that money wouldn’t circulate in Auroville. She also made it clear that all businesses run by Aurovilians would belong to Auroville. This, Gilles noted, effectively killed the interest of outside businesspeople in investing in business activities in Auroville. He concluded, “In terms of social rules, things are still less constraining in Auroville than in the Ashram. But no private property and no circulation of money make things far more constraining in Auroville than they are today for people gravitating around the Ashram and living at their own expense.”

Economic milestones

Alain Bernard’s review of the key milestones in the development of Auroville’s economy began with the Prosperity system, which operated between 1968 – 75. Under this system, which was managed by the SAS from Pondicherry, adults received Rs 125 a month pocket money (children Rs 75) plus basic necessities like clothes and soap. In 1973, a central food distribution system began in Auroville, followed by the opening of Pour Tous on 28th February 1974, the main purpose of which was to minimise money exchange in Auroville. In 1976 the Pour Tous fund was created as a common account for bakery, laundry, food purchase and the big kitchens. The existence of the fund was vehemently opposed by the SAS who cut off funding to the Aurovilians. However, this hastened Auroville’s financial independence as friends and Auroville centres around the world gave the new fund financial support.

Between 1978 – 85, Auroville’s finances were administered through the ‘envelopes’ system under which money was paid into and disbursed by an organizing group from twelve envelopes that covered key activities of Auroville’s economy.

The temporary Government of India takeover of Auroville, in November 1980, led to a period of greater stability and consolidation. However, in 1984 the findings of a survey of Auroville’s economic status concluded that the community had inadequate financial resources. This was when the linking of maintenances with work began and many more people began to draw their income from working in commercial units. 1984 also saw the creation of SAIIER, a collective maintenance fund for educational researchers that also brought in substantial new financial resources for educational development.

In September, 1988 the Auroville Foundation Act created a new legal status for Auroville. The next year the Central Fund was created, which marked the beginning of the computerization of individual financial accounts, and the Auroville Board of Commerce was formed to foster better coordination between commercial units. In 1991 the Financial Service opened its first outlet.

In December, 1997, the opening of the Solar Kitchen marked a major step in developing the in-kind economy, and between 1999-02 there were the ‘circles’ experiment which aimed at increasing the sharing of resources between Aurovilians. This particular experiment proved unsuccessful, but it marked the beginning of consistent efforts to develop an ‘in-kind’ economy in Auroville. In March, 2006, the Pour Tous Distribution Service opened. Its aims include the encouragement of simplicity and the avoidance of consumerism.

The Auroville Services

Nicole’s review of Auroville services began with an attempt to define what constitutes a service. This is not obvious as our services are funded in many different ways and everybody in Auroville is expected to work in a spirit of service irrespective of their occupation. She explained that our services can be divided into different sectors – prosperity (PTDC, Solar Kitchen, Freestore, Health etc.), municipal (water, electricity, security, roads, waste management etc.), administrative, education and culture and outreach. She also referred to an FAMC note of 2011 that tried to define the characteristics of a service. These included not aiming at making a profit, only offering a service within Auroville, and operating, unlike commercial units, only under the supervision of the BCC or other bona-fide supervisory body.

City Services, which support or partially supports many services, can only utilise 18% of the income of Unity Fund, and City Services cannot make capital grants to the services. This means that any major investments in existing or new services cannot be financed collectively. This is a major obstacle to the improvement of existing services and the creation of new ones.

In spite of this, Nicole believes there is a need to increase municipal services like those necessary for supporting a growing township and the prosperity in-kind services. She also floated the idea of creating different zones in Auroville for different economic activities. For example, the central zone could be reserved for activities involving no exchange of money, another zone could be for Financial Account payments only, and an outside zone for cash transactions only.

Reflections on the process so far

There seems to be general agreement among those who have attended these sessions that this is an important initiative. There is appreciation of the fact that a learning forum like this is very different from our usual General Meetings. For it requires participants, as far as possible, to empty themselves of preconceived opinions and ideas in order to open selves to new information and knowledge, and to offer their ideas and perspectives in a humble manner. And, during these sessions, a great deal of information about our economy, which is not easy for the average Aurovilian to obtain, has been conveyed.

The problem has been that, at times, too much information has been given for the attendees to absorb and sometimes it has been presented in such a way that it is difficult to get a ‘handle’ upon it. For example, a proliferation of facts about the evolution of the Auroville economy is less useful than drawing out the main trends.

An associated problem is that while the presenters are experts in their fields they are not necessarily good communicators. Moreover, the mode of communication so far has been predominantly the lecture format. This can make it difficult for those who are not so able to receive information in this way, and, in the long run, may lead to them staying away. This would defeat one of the purposes of the Joy of Learning initiative, which is to spread key knowledge about our major work areas as widely as possible across Auroville so that the community as a whole can come up with solutions to the major challenges.

The organizers are very aware that this is a work in progress. This is why, after the second session, the decision was taken to look again at the way the sessions are organized and information is imparted. But there is general agreement among the organizers that the Joy of Learning initiative which plans, in the future, to focus upon areas like housing, governance and town planning, is potentially very worthwhile and perhaps even critical for getting greater community participation in planning our future development.