Wanted: a Working Committee

In our last issue, we reported on a new way of selecting the Working Committee and Auroville Council which had been approved in March: Aurovilians were invited to nominate themselves for one of four different positions – coordinator, facilitator, resource person or silent listener. This was followed by a three day event which all of those who had nominated themselves were asked to attend. During these three days a selection process took place involving the whole group, and most of the attendees were selected for a position in either the Working Committee or Council.

The people selected were presented to the community in a General Meeting. At this and a subsequent General Meeting, while there was appreciation that new people were putting themselves forward for this work, concerns were raised as to the competence of some of the people selected. There were also objections that that the community feedback regarding some of these individuals had not been properly dealt with.

At the end of June, the Auroville community was invited to vote on the outcome. Over 280 Aurovilians (a quorum) participated and 65% approved the members of the new Council. However, 63% disapproved of the outcome for selecting the new Working Committee.

This split vote threw the community into disarray. While the new Council could begin functioning, it was not at all clear what the next step should be concerning the choice of a new Working Committee. The situation was complicated by the fact that voters had only been given the option of a blanket ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So did a ‘no’ mean that all the people who had been selected for the new Working Committee were unacceptable, or only some of them? And had some people also voted ‘no’ to the process which had resulted in this outcome?

The nature of the objections became clearer during a series of General Meetings called to find a way forward. The main reservations expressed once again were that many of the proposed members lacked the experience or competence to perform this important work; that the proposed membership lacked balance as it was overwhelmingly Tamil and male; and that a few of the people proposed should not hold such positions as allegations about their past behaviour would unfit them to represent the community.

Each of these reservations was contested during these meetings. Regarding the first two, it was pointed out that the Council and Working Committee, in this new process, were no longer small self-contained bodies but were required to involve many people in the larger community. It was argued that as expertise in the larger community could be called upon whenever needed, lack of expertise or experience in the core group was not necessarily an issue. As to the other major reservation, those who had been the subject of allegations felt they had been unfairly victimized.

However, as the community had rejected the outcome regarding the Working Committee there was clearly no point in simply resubmitting the names. Instead, it was suggested that an interim Working Committee should take office for 3-6 months. This would allow the substantial feedback received by the Selection Group regarding certain proposed members to be dealt with properly. It would also allow the community to re-examine the selection process and, if necessary, suggest modifications. In this context, the ongoing experiment of the new Council might furnish valuable indications about what needs to be improved.

One of the suggested modifications was to allow people to nominate others for membership of the Council and Working Committee to ensure that competent people were nominated. A more radical suggestion was that everybody on the Master List should nominate a few names for the Working Committee. These would be totaled up and the top 30 or so would then choose the next Working Committee from among themselves.

It was pointed out, however, that as the community had approved the new selection process, any change would have to be approved by the community before it could be adopted.

Some people felt there was no point in trying to form a temporary Working Committee as this would take as long as choosing a permanent one. Nor was it clear how an interim Working Committee would be formed. Suggestions included inviting the present Working Committee to stay on for a few more months; asking the seven new signatories who had emerged from the recent selection process (and who had received no adverse feedback) to serve; or asking members of previous Working Committees to step temporarily into the breach.

Other inputs suggested that the present imbroglio should be looked upon as an opportunity to redefine the role of the Working Committee. One Aurovilian felt that the role of the Working Committee specified in the Foundation Act was merely that of a secretariat to the Residents Assembly, not the ‘power body’ which it had become. Another felt this was an opportunity for the Council to step forward and take up its true role of guiding and coordinating community activities.

After three general meetings with diminishing participation, it was clear that there was no agreement on the way forward. The last general meeting therefore decided to let the Council, which had taken up the selection of a new Working Committee as its first priority and which had already started working on the issue with the Organization Study Group, explore the matter further and make its recommendations to the larger community.