The more things change...the more they stay the same

Towards undivine anarchy? The Auroville housing situation

Practicality and imagination: these two strands informed Auroville’s experiments with housing in the early years. The first settlers looked at what had already been done by the local inhabitants – huts with mud walls thatched with coconut leaves or straw – then tweaked it to accommodate their rather unique needs. The result? The Auroville ‘capsule’, an airy, lightweight hut resting on granite pillars. It could even be moved from place to place.

Yet, from the very beginning, this ‘indigenous’ line of development was paralleled by a ‘visionary’ line. The sweeping concrete curves of Last School, the soaring cantilevered wing of the Bharat Nivas auditorium, the fluid forms of Auromodèle – all these, in their attempts to herald the new, the futuristic, paid little attention to traditional materials and conditions.

Today architecture has clearly shifted away from the visionary and towards the practical end of the spectrum. Most of our institutional architecture is bland, and many Aurovilians live in somewhat featureless houses and apartments. These changes reflected a number of factors: changes in occupation (computer work replacing land work), an increased desire for security, cleanliness and comfort, a new wave of Aurovilians arriving with different expectations and desires regarding housing. The ‘gentrification’ of the capsule was also an expression of Aurovilians’ deeper connectedness to the land, the flip side of which was an increased sense of proprietorship: ‘my house’, ‘my land’.

Newcomers were encouraged to buy into the new city housing projects. Not all of them jumped at the chance. The apartments were not cheap, nor were they designed for children, while many of the new medium-density communities smacked too much of the urban landscapes newcomers were fleeing in the West. As the population increased, and the land available and the possibility of constructing one’s own accommodation decreased, the screw tightened further. At the mercy of rapidly increasing construction prices, bounced between rather different agendas of the Entry Group, Housing Service, architects, developers and Auroville communities, house-hunters could be seen wandering disconsolately backwards and forward like disembodied souls.

The losers in all of this are those who, like some Tamil Aurovilians and Auroville youth, have nothing to sell or rent and don’t have the means to purchase or rent the accommodation on offer. The choice for them seems stark: stay here and live like second-class citizens in sub-standard accommodation or leave to earn the necessary funds elsewhere. As for those young Indian students, full of energy and idealism, who would like to become newcomers, the message seems to be at present, ‘Come back when you’ve made your millions’.

Coming together to protect the coast

Erosion of the coast close to Auroville is now catastrophic. Almost thirty metres of Quiet beach has disappeared over the past six months and neighbouring fishing villages are also badly affected. Concerned by the scale of the erosion, which affects both the Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu shoreline, a local citizens’ network (PondyCAN) organised a consultation meeting in Auroville that was attended by senior officials from both States, coastal management experts and non-governmental organisations working on the coast. The aim of the meeting, co-organised by the Auroville Coastal-Area Development Centre (ACDC), was to agree upon a plan to protect and restore the coast.

The experts began by pointing out that on a coast like ours, where there are frequent storms, strong currents and oblique wave action, sand movement (known as littoral drift) is a natural phenomenon which can result in erosion. However, there seemed to be general agreement that building two breakwaters for a small harbour to the south of Pondicherry Town in the late 1980s had made matters much worse, as these had disrupted the littoral drift.

The results of this disruption soon became clear. Sand piled up to the south of these breakwaters, the Pondicherry beach disappeared, and beaches further north eroded. The Puducherry administration responded by constructing sea walls and proposed to build a groyne field in an attempt to protect coastal villages which, having lost their protective beaches, were threatened by the waves. As the erosion moved north, the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu also began constructing sea walls and groynes along its shoreline.

Was the meeting a success? Probably not for those who wanted to see agreements being made about specific courses of action within specified time-frames. However, since it was billed as a ‘consultation meet’ this expectation may have been unrealistic.

Showing Promise?

A proposed four-lane highway threatens the future of its school and some of its housing. Its location outside Auroville’s Green Belt makes it vulnerable to being sold for commercial development. Each year Pondicherry gets closer. Can Promesse survive and prosper?

Promesse was a place of first experiments, a place for future Aurovilians working on the town’s early stages. The land was bought from the Customs Department in May 1965. It was convenient, being on the main road, and it had existing customs houses which could be converted to provide accommodation and other facilities.

The community faces many issues: the planned widening of the road, the possibility of Promesse being sold to enable plots closer to the centre of Auroville to be purchased, the maintenance of good relationships with the village next door (which is both spreading and generating more traffic), the presence of asbestos in the roofs of some older houses, the inexorable advance of Pondicherry, and the obtaining of funds to carry out essential work and improvements.

The Master Plan for Auroville suggests a use for Promesse as a service node. If Auroville decides to regulate visitor traffic it will need a place on its boundary for visitors to leave their vehicles and transfer to non-polluting transport within the town. Businesses within Auroville may also have large storage requirements which should be located on its boundaries.

Promesse has never been short of plans for its future. Few have come to fruition. On a report card, “Shows promise” is generally shorthand for “can succeed if the will is there”. It’s a long shot. Can Mother’s “small place, with a pretty garden and trees” find a workable niche in tomorrow’s Auroville? Will the next report read “RIP” or “Exceeds expectations”?

Evolving the Matrimandir gardens

What does the larger community feel about what is happening right now in the Matrimandir gardens? There seems to be widespread support for the fact that, at last, something is being manifested. As to the actual designs, when Paulo and Roger presented their differing concepts for the twelve gardens some time ago, they generated considerable, often heated, discussion. Now that the gardens have been given over to individual designers, there’s more a sense of ‘wait and see’.

As ever, Matrimandir is a remorseless lens, throwing into sharp focus our unresolved issues regarding authority, the interpretation of Mother’s vision, even the nature of the ‘new’ spirituality. What exacerbates these tensions at present, however, is a lack of information regarding exactly what is manifesting on site, and why.

There is suspicion that the larger community is viewed by the executing group as an obstacle rather than a possible source of creative input in the manifestation of the Matrimandir gardens. While there may be some reason for the executing group’s stance – the community has often proved itself incapable of charting a clear and intelligent course – the net effect of the present situation is that everybody involved becomes locked in self-reinforcing positions: as the walls go up, the shouts from without grow louder which, in turn, push the walls even higher.

Perhaps it is this negative spiral of mutual distrust, rather than any issue of individual design, which is the real challenge we have to surmount if Matrimandir is finally to be a living symbol of human unity.

How to govern Utopia

Over the years, many Aurovilians have worked hard on sensible proposals for collective decision-making. These tend to get shot down – often with maximum hostility – by this or that section of the community. The surprising thing is that anyone has the energy to try again.

Auroville’s long march towards effective governance has taken us through some twisted paths and byways in the last few months. The destination may be as far off as ever, or it may be just around the next bend. But at any rate, the journey has recently been quite interesting.

If “Self-Governance in Auroville” were a piece of classical music, we would hear two main themes always playing against one another. One represents a system in which Aurovilians directly participate – by whatever means – in shaping their government; the other represents rule by a responsible, enlightened elite. Each tune has its own beauty. But they are in different keys and different modes, so that they clash horribly with one another. This is Dissonance.

Perhaps a time will come when our aspiration to be a different (and better) community does not conflict with our practical, everyday needs as a society. On that day, there will be Harmony. Until then, we must struggle on as best we can.

The material problems of ageing

Auroville is well ahead of most communities in its wide range of activities, spiritual, mental and physical, which encourage well-being and personal growth. But what happens when one can no longer ride a bike or drive a moped or scooter?

Social isolation can be a problem. Erica lived here for many years but in her eighties began to feel increasingly isolated and lonely as she found it difficult to move around and was becoming dependent on visitors. After a couple of exploratory visits to Germany, she decided to move back to her roots and live near her son. “Auroville is not a particularly friendly place. Most people do not speak your native language or can share your history. Many are new here and involved in establishing themselves. There is little social life or visiting, or just dropping in for a cup of tea. It often lacks heart,” she says.

This issue seems to be more starkly evident when people have difficulty leaving their homes without assistance. There is a growing need in Auroville for more community-run transport, small vans or buses, not just to take seniors to work but also for social outings, shopping trips, medical visits, attending classes and courses and for getting around Auroville generally.

Continued participation in community life also requires that all those with decreased mobility can still access important buildings. But Auroville’s most significant building and its soul, the Matrimandir, is virtually inaccessible to those who cannot climb its steep ramps. Concentration in the inner chamber is closed for those less mobile or with heart conditions. Only the petal chambers remain available to them. For many, this is a sore loss.

Meeting the basic needs

In recent years, the development of Auroville’s economy has taken a turn which is quite common and accepted elsewhere in the world, but which does not reflect Auroville’s aspirations. Two groups have developed: the ‘earning side’ (productive units) and the ‘spending side’ (community services etc.) And with the development of these two groups, strong differences emerged, both in income and attitudes. Each group has a major objection to the other, which roughly comes down to the following:

‘Spenders’ say of ‘earners’ that they do not contribute sufficiently to the collective and if they do, they wish to decide for themselves where the money goes.

‘Earners’ say of ‘spenders’ that they do not work sufficiently for the collective, and do not trouble themselves to organize their units in such a way as to reduce spending to a minimum.

One clear conclusion was that a decent basic minimum should be guaranteed for each Aurovilian, that this basic maintenance should be related to work for the collectivity, but that it should be independent of where one works and what kind of work one does, so that one can really choose one’s work from within.

Growing food for the township

There is enough land in Auroville to serve many interests, but the land is being used and developed too haphazardly. There needs to be more designation of the purposes for specific parcels by residents, or by some recognized and respected authority, so that land is not abused and so that past investments are not neglected, destroyed, or privatized. In particular, land that has been improved for agriculture needs to be preserved and protected so that Auroville can feed itself in the future.

If Auroville decides to produce more of its own food, something will have to be done to reduce the risks being borne by Auroville’s farmers. A laissez-faire or free market approach to food production will not serve the public interest unless it includes a regenerated landscape and freedom from the ironic phenomenon of hunger despite bumper crops and food surpluses. Presently, many of Auroville’s farms function because of the personal financial investment made by individual Aurovilians. Production is risky. If a crop doesn’t yield or sell, the farmer takes a monetary loss. Auroville could encourage and increase production by identifying qualities of food that will be needed in community kitchens and by food processors, and then guaranteeing a fixed level of payment for such produce. Again, such a policy will require more conscious cooperation and coordination.

Towards a township

Here’s a conundrum. Auroville, as the name suggests, is intended to be a town. Yet, years after its inauguration, it is still little more than a scattering of settlements with a few outposts of urbanization. This summer Auroville schoolchildren were invited to imagine the city of the future. What did they draw? Nothing resembling a city but rather an Auroville of rivers, forests, reindeer, snowmen and giant Ferris wheels (and, of course, Matrimandir) over which rocket-powered Aurovilians flit like dragonflies.

Why is it taking so long not just to build, but even to imagine the town? Perhaps the key element in the failure to materialize the original vision was the fact that Mother was no longer physically present. In March 1972, she told Satprem that for her plan for Auroville to succeed not only would she have to remain in her body, but she would also have to become strong. If the city was to be built fast – and she repeatedly told him she wanted it to be completed within 15-25 years – it had to be centrally planned and built. Only Mother’s authority would have made that possible. When she left it became inevitable that subsequent development would be more piecemeal, more ‘organic’.

Do we need guidelines?

For more than one year, members of the Entry Group have been coming together in a study group to work on guidelines for Auroville residents. The term ‘guideline’ as opposed to ‘rule’ or ‘regulation’ had been adopted in the early ‘80s as a recognition of the fact that Aurovilians generally lack the means to enforce any rules, and that Auroville’s society is an evolving one and there are fears that (rigid) rules might stifle rather than help the process of its development, or be misused.

The proposals of the group were discussed in a Residents’ Assembly. Interestingly, the discussion centred almost immediately on the usefulness of guidelines at all. Were guidelines not the invention of those who endeavoured to manage Auroville after Mother’s passing in 1973? Should Auroville not go beyond guidelines? Had Mother not spoken about a divine anarchy? Why have guidelines if you lack the power to enforce them? These were some of the arguments raised by people who consider that Auroville can do very well without guidelines of any sort. Others stressed that it was Mother herself who had created rules and, when asked why, had answered that “perhaps Aurovilians have not yet attained the level of consciousness expected of them.” The fact that there are so many different types of people living in Auroville was used as an argument in favour of guidelines.

“We cannot ask newcomers to do what we, Aurovilians, do not do. How can we expect newcomers to have continuous good faith if they are always being slapped in the face by the attitude of Aurovilians?” said one member of the Entry Group in answer to a question.

Transcending differences

PhD students of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) have chosen Auroville as a site for a ‘cultural synergy’ project. The students split up into three groups, and one of the groups focused on the bioregion. The bioregional group identified numerous ‘tensions’ or points of difference between the villagers and the Aurovilians. They also observed that many Aurovilians, when confronted by the problem of the villages, tend to acknowledge the problem but then take a step back, “go inward”, or have the expectation that “Mother will take care of things”, rather than becoming actively engaged in changing the situation. This was particularly difficult for some members of the group to accept as they worked as social activists in the US.

But the major concern of the group had to do with something else. Is Auroville exploiting the local people? Is Auroville yet another colonising power? Are Aurovilians racist? The questions were more than academic, for three of this CIIS sub-group were African-Americans who had experienced racism in the US. One of them was concerned because all over Auroville she had observed that people with dark skins were in the role of servants, that the concerns of the local people were not fully understood by non-Tamil Aurovilians, and that within Auroville itself the Tamil people did not seem to be much involved in decision-making.

Guests and visitors: evolution or dilution?

“New place on earth”, “This place is pretentious and farcical”, are just two of the comments on Auroville from the visitors’ book at Auroville’s information centre. Obviously, guests and visitors perceive us and relate to us in many different ways. But how do Aurovilians respond to the tidal wave of visitors and guests that floods through Auroville every year between January and March? And what are the lessons we are being asked to learn? To open up more to the world? To be more discriminating? To live more fully the ideal?

Visitors and guests have been coming to Auroville for years, but recently the dramatic increase in their numbers has caught many Aurovilians off-balance. Consequently, while some Aurovilians welcome the influx for financial reasons or as a confirmation that Auroville at last “belongs to the world”, others are concerned that Auroville’s integrity will be weakened, diluted by an onslaught of ‘trippers’ seeking a kind of spiritual Disneyland … or just a few weeks in the lazy South Indian sun.

So what’s really going on? Evolution or dilution?

What do we celebrate?

"There’s no joy here, you don’t know how to celebrate together.” We hear it quite often from visitors. They come expecting to find a New-Age kind of caring and celebratory community, but instead encounter stone-faced Aurovilians, jaws forward, hurtling along dust roads or crashing the line at the Pour Tous counter in their hurry to get to their next appointment.

Are Aurovilians incapable of enjoying themselves, of celebrating together? It’s not through lack of opportunities: bonfires in the Amphitheatre, fairs, cultural events, parties, picnics, full moons at the beach, Deepavali, Christmas are all occasions when something joyful, something other than the jaw-jutting attitude is evoked. Yet it’s also true that many of these events happen infrequently, and none of them - not even the bonfires - attract all ‘flavours’ of the community. Maybe there’s some truth then, in those visitors’ perceptions. Maybe Auroville is not a ‘celebratory culture’, at least not in any immediately identifiable sense.

No more business as usual?

On the second day of the seminar, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of Auroville businesses was presented. The perceived strengths included a unique environment and socially- and ecologically-conscious managers who share a common vision. A mite of wishful thinking? The description of the weaknesses, however, seemed spot-on: lack of quality standards and common marketing strategies, inadequate management skills and a culture of competition rather than collaboration.

And the opportunities? Auroville could be a model for a post-industrial campus (a what?). We should set up an institution for management and business consciousness.

That a spirit of unreality had somehow infected the morning was confirmed by the next presentation: establishing a ‘brand identity’ for Auroville businesses. This involved a vision statement (The Dream), a mission (‘To build the city the Earth needs’), a ‘signature’ (‘building human unity’) and a catchy sound-bite (‘Many dream of building a new life on Earth. Some are making it happen.’) And then, of course, there was the all-important logo: the Auroville symbol.

Amazingly, the ensuing discussion was all about improving the Auro-sell. Nobody questioned the ethics of using our ideals as a means of selling more candles and jam.

In search of an Auroville economic model

For several years, Auroville had been groping around for the right economic model. Although some economists think that this field of human activity possesses its own universal laws, the best ones also think that economy is ‘embedded’ in society, and that it can work well only when a society is living in tune with its values.

Like anywhere else in the world, two tendencies have been at work in Auroville’s economy. Some believe it should be centralized and put in the hands of a representative body accountable to the community. Others think that a freer play of individual initiative - in work, investment and consumption - would be far more beneficial to the whole. But both models are imported clichés, and not an emanation of Auroville’s special experience and genius.

Money seems to be the very breath of the economy, its animating power, inducing work and consumption to finally resolve itself again in purely monetary terms as the surplus or profit to be invested and circulated again in the great game of life. So, is an economy without internal circulation of money possible? Some of us think so …

Why so little kindness?

I recently attended a series of General Meetings at which the land crisis was discussed. At the end I went away feeling depressed. This is nothing unusual for me after such meetings, but this time it had a particular focus. For I felt that the group which had been working on intractable land issues for many months had been unfairly treated: instead of appreciation for the hard work they had put into drawing up their proposal, there was widespread criticism.

Now, heaven forbid that we have to accept everything that any group brings as a proposal to a General Meeting. But it seems to me that the manner in which we work out our disagreements is crucial - perhaps even more crucial than the final agreement. And one of the things we lack in the way we treat each other in our public forums is, for the want of a better word, kindness.

I may be wrong here, but when I observe the emotional charge which some people bring to community meetings, I get the impression that many of our discussions and conflicts are not primarily about the issue we appear to be debating, but about ourselves. About our personal dissatisfactions, insecurities, frustrations, about our doubts concerning Auroville and our place here, about what we have or have not achieved. And all this manifests not in honest self-examination, but in dogmatic espousals of high ideals or in attacks against authority, against the ‘other’ whom we claim is oppressing us or leading us astray.

Are we succumbing to dogmatism?

It is amazing, when one thinks about it, that in all these years of its existence, there are very few social or anthropological studies of Auroville. We were pioneers in researching sustainable technologies in India, we have tried out numerous alternative economic models, experimented with our internal organisation, with educational methods, documented our success in environmental regeneration, and yet, when it comes to studying ourselves, Aurovilians as a sub-species of homo sapiens, we are strangely silent.

Sure, there have been isolated attempts to explain the way we function. Within the community, amongst ourselves, we freely use labels such as “green-belter,” “city-wallah,” “old crocodile,” or more recently, “rich newcomer,” to denote certain prevalent patterns of thinking or action, and yet, there are no objective studies to research and explain the social behaviour of the community. One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that Aurovilians tend to hold themselves a cut above the rest of the world. Aurovilians see themselves as practitioners of a new yoga, the Integral Yoga, that goes far beyond other spiritual traditions, and hence they are too easily dismissive of other traditions of knowledge. Yet, even a superficial observation indicates that Aurovilians often exhibit the same behavioural patterns as elsewhere in the world. One such behavioural trend is the need to judge other’s actions through the measuring rod of “religion.” What I mean by “religion” in this context is a dogmatic adherence to one’s spiritual beliefs. To me, religion connotes a mental (as opposed to transcendental) understanding and expression of one’s beliefs. The danger of such an attitude is that it is infra-rational, below the reasoning powers of the mind, and if allowed a hold, it could drag the community backwards.

From suburb to community

Auroville stands sociologically as an example of values taking precedence over individual material interests. The individual relationships with the divine and the recognition of the divine working in a collective context give meaning to words like human unity, freedom and individual development - a far cry from the value placed on competition in the capitalist world. Yet Auroville is part of a world capitalist system which increasingly includes even the communist nations. It can therefore be no surprise that Auroville itself is taking on a normal capitalistic development pattern: free enterprise, the internal exchange of money, wage-labour, and the loss of an ethos of sharing and trust.

You cannot remain charmed

The first impression of Auroville’s architecture is the multitude of highly individualized expressions and it is really charming to see that. Coming from more structured situations, the breath of freedom and creativity is refreshing; but as you know Auroville longer, and try to develop an overview, you realize that there really is no overview! Auroville has some beautiful structures, most of which, however, don’t speak or relate to one another. For architects this is a disaster, because while something may be beautiful in itself, its meaning comes from its context from its being the right thing in the right place. When one see this overall incoherence in the buildings, you cannot remain charmed...Then it seems clear that more architects are necessary, architects in the Indian sense of ‘master-builders’, those who have, above all other skills, the overview, working from the ‘whole’ to the ‘part’.

How can we realize the present town plan, which seems so futuristic to many Aurovilians?

When you compare the town plan to the present day reality, you see the big steps that have to be taken. What is not so clear is how new patterns can be introduced with smooth transitions, so that they can work in co-existence with the older concept. The higher and more futuristic our ideals, the more important it is to design the transition, the practical steps to take us from here to there.

They like us when we do our yoga!

Why should Auroville concern itself with the villages?

Dee: We in Auroville are committed to achieving human unity. The villagers represent our greatest challenge because the gap between us and them is so immense. Auroville is like the world - we are a small elite representing the powerful rich of Western society surrounded by thousands of villagers. Three quarters of the world’s population lives in villages! So if we’re really serious about human unity, our challenge is to bridge that gap. We should also see that closing our eyes to the villages won’t make them go away. Even from a self-protection point of view, we should concern ourselves with them, because if we do not share and care, how long will they be willing to cooperate with us?

The vast majority of Aurovilians know very little about the villages. Why is this?

I think it’s a clear case of us rejecting our shadow side. We project onto them what we don’t want to look at in ourselves, everything that we wish we were not. We do this individually and collectively. And the villagers are so convenient for this projection. Yet I believe no villager does anything that we don’t also do.

It’s our work, our yoga, not theirs, to look at this and acknowledge this. Then the compassion will flow and everything will look different. If we begin, the villagers will help by appreciating and supporting us. If we don’t do it, we’ll never achieve human unity. In this sense, the villages are our great opportunity.

Editorial

So how have we done? Concerning the ‘here and now’, we’ve provided regular coverage of key topics like the economy, environment, education, Matrimandir, building the city and relations with the villages, making Auroville Today an invaluable - in fact, unique - history of Auroville’s development over the years. What we hadn’t anticipated, however, was how many issues we couldn’t cover, either because they would show the community in a poor light, or because discussions were at such a sensitive stage that we didn’t want to jeopardise the outcome through insensitive reporting, or because as most of the team are technically ‘foreigners’ with few rights in Indian law, we were only too aware that we could receive quit notices if we were perceived to be making statements offending sensitivities. For Auroville Today is read not only by Aurovilians and friends and supporters abroad: it is also read in government offices and foreign embassies in India and Indian embassies abroad.

All this meant we were nudged further into the conservative section of the reporting spectrum than the team would prefer. This tendency has been reinforced by our second goal: for in our wish to provide a meeting place for understanding different perspectives it was important that we were perceived to be unaligned, or at least to be able to grasp the larger picture. This has its drawbacks, notably in our sometimes having to sacrifice the ‘edge’ which spices journalism the world over (the edge has been further blunted by our policy of allowing interviewees to read and change their articles before publication). Increasingly over the years, however, we’ve been willing to talk about not only our successes but also our failings as a community, and to ask hard questions as a means of stimulating debate.

If we’re honest, we don’t really know what we are doing with Auroville Today. We embarked on a voyage with a clutch of promises, but once the coastline faded, we had to chart a course as much by intuition as by sextant. More than once we’ve thought of abandoning the whole enterprise, but we kept sailing on because of the enthusiastic support of our readership and because we feel we still have something unique to offer in the hunt of that elusive species, Auroville today.

Answers:

1) October 2002; 2) December 2007; 3) April 2008; 4) August 2005; 5) September 2003; 6) August 2008; 7) January 1989 ; 8) April 1995; 9) December 2003; 10) November 1995; 11) February 1996; 12) May 1996; 13) December 1996; 14) April 2006; IS) December 2006; 16) June-July 2007; 17) May 2002; 18) January, 1989 19) December, 1991 20) February, 1990 21) November 2003