Take a stand against the toxic narrative

In the aftermath of the recent Residents’ Sindhuja, Srimoyi, Toby, and Toine, but I do and act by morals as a higher standard that any illegal, atrocious, injurious, abusive, and Assembly Meeting, I have tried to understand and introspect the inner resistance that I have been feeling towards “moving on”. A lot of things do not feel right. A few specific points come to me that make my heart beat faster and my breath catch in my throat, and that leave me with a deep sense of fear, disconnect and discomfort on a human level.

I do not want to talk about the Crown Road and I also do not want to talk about the Auroville Foundation Office, nor the Governing Board. But I will say one thing: humility-masked victory-dances showing up at the first Residents’ Assembly Meeting felt like a slap in the face to all who personally experienced the sanctioned physical violence at the Youth Centre and Dharkali, myself included

I want to talk about our Auroville.

I want to share with you the deep sadness that I feel and the lack of confidence that I have in our working groups, namely the Working Committee and the Auroville Town Development Council, for the failure to take accountability as a group for the actions and inactions that have occurred these past weeks, and for failing to publicly acknowledge let alone apologize for how things went down.

I don’t care that I don’t see eye to eye with you; Anbu, Antim, Anu, Joel, Lakshay. I care that you care about me and others, on a human level. How can you stand by and do nothing in the face of physical violence? With your silence you are endorsing these actions. I need to trust you as compassionate human beings in this journey with me, human beings who have discernment between their intention and the lived and experienced impact of their intentions and actions. Without this trust on a human level, a growing disconnect with our beautiful community members is happening.

Having served in the working groups myself, I have faced challenging conflicts and faced my own shortcomings, assumptions, and the impact of certain choices that I made that hurt people. The first step in healing these things inside myself was to take stock and detach from the shame or feelings of ‘losing face’. In my experience, and in this context, there is nothing that an honest apology cannot bridge. In fact, an honest apology shows strength, perspective, and can build self-esteem and confidence. We all make mistakes and it is part of the human experience to be and do better everyday. Can you call this a mistake?

Without this, personally speaking, I refuse to “move on”; not because the little me that I am require closure from an external entity, (I can do that for myself) but because as the young society that we are, we need to establish law. Whether we follow a legal process or act lawfully is not the question here (although many aspects of this issue would classify as illegal). Our social norms and the aspiration of Auroville demands discipline and morality above laws from each of us, and from our community representatives all the more. The said working groups need to acknowledge and take accountability for the human experiences that have taken place as a direct result of their actions and inactions.

Without taking accountability for the experiences of violation, hurt and betrayal that a part of this community has lived, we are missing the point.

I am certain that there are experiences of deep hurt and betrayal on “both sides”. Without a dialogue and transformative resolutions, the crevasses in the fabric of our unity will remain and any semblance of unity will continue to have a shadow of ‘what if this happens again?’

This is a fundamental human rights issue under international law. If the Working Committee and ATDC don’t take a clear stand right now condemning the use of physical violence for development in Auroville and acknowledge that the use of hired forces and JCBs coming unannounced to destroy infra- structure at 8 am WHILE SOMEONE IS INSIDE THE BUILDING SLEEPING, is an damaging act, there is little room for reparation or restoring trust.

This is a fundamental human rights issue under international law. The sad skeleton of victim blaming, trauma dismissal and emotion- al invalidation shouts that the youth deserved this because “the Youth Centre was purposely built on the Crown Road” and therefore “had it coming”. I cannot believe it nor understand it. I have literally no words. Who are we? We are better than that. I am afraid that in the pursuit of a noble cause we are allowing our humanity to die a pitiful death. I don’t stand for this. “No remorse” and “past is past” won’t cut it here.

This toxic narrative needs to change, and we need to speak to each other. I invite you to be brave and to trust that beautiful things can emerge when we embrace all the different experiences as opportunities to learn. I can promise you that each of you who sincerely comes forward to listen and feel the impact of certain decisions you made, will open the door for the emergence of something higher and truer. Moving on without doing so will remain as a stain on Auroville, an unhealed collective wound and a memory of a time where we didn’t stand for basic human rights.

I invite you to be brave. I stand with you.