The Secretary meets the community

Question: Everybody has the right and privilege to participate in decision-making according to our Residents Assembly decision-making process. I noticed that the Town Development Committee recently stated that the Crown clearing process would continue underway regardless of the outcome. So the community decision-making process will be sidelined.

ATDC: We are not sidelining, it is the opposite, we are honoring something that has been approved by the Residents Assembly not so long ago and that is what we call the Master Plan.

Secretary: If The Mother has given a plan why would I want to keep punching holes in it? Professor Doshi and others are saying that this plan that The Mother gave is contemporary and futuristic, so why are we questioning this? The Residents Assembly approved it with an overwhelming majority in 1999, so why do we delay the whole thing? Now is the time to rededicate ourselves and to make the city happen.

People fear that if somebody speaks out their visas might be cancelled. Will you cancel people’s visas or deport them if tomorrow this trauma happens again and we are standing in front of JCBs? Or send them to prison if they are born in India?

Secretary: If we allow to happen what has been endorsed by all of us, why should there be fear? If we follow Indian law and procedures, currently we have four simple things to follow: the Constitution of India where obstructing any government servant or any of the teams doing their work is an offence under Indian law. It’s also about respecting the Constitution of India, it’s about respecting the Foundation Act, and the statutory gazette notification of the Master Plan.

Many of us have travelled abroad. When we go to any country abroad, do we respect the laws of the land, do we take the law into our hands? And yet let me tell you we have not and we do not intend to hold back any visas, but our behavior also has to be exemplary so that not only people in and around Auroville, but everybody respects the kind of community we are.

The Governing Board met and decided various things about the construction of the Crown ways and the Master Plan. The Governing Board and its Chairman are the final authority, so why do we allow the obstructions that are going on?

Secretary: We are trying and we need the support of all of you. This is a plan that The Mother gave in 1968. That same plan has been ported into a Master Plan with the same drawings, but the nomenclature was changed. The plan that The Mother gave is being respected as sacrosanct.

ATDC: The topic of the clearing of the right-of-way started more than a year ago in talks and in general meetings. I think we had more than 50 talks with all the concerned people. This resulted in a survey. We made different proposals which were rejected and gradually we realised that whatever we did would not be quickly accepted. We realised that if we were to go on, we needed to do more than only talking.

The way that things have been happening gives us a very insecure feeling about what is going to happen in the future.

ATDC: This depends upon how we behave, how much we are aligned to the Charter. What happened happened with all due processes and if it feels like it was painful, it was because everything else was exhausted.

In the past there were Governing Boards and Secretaries, and there was a lot of elasticity. But suddenly this has disappeared and a big force is coming in. I wonder if this sudden development is going to be a continuous development, or is it just to do with the Sri Aurobindo’s 150th year.

Secretary: Is this rapid development only going to be for the 150th year? The answer is in your hands. The town was founded in 1968. The government didn’t want to come into it, but then there were conflicts and a group from here approached the government and requested them to take it over. From when the Master Plan was made, you had full freedom, but if it is not implemented by the community the Foundation Act clearly says the Governing Board shall ensure its implementation. So why do you give a chance for anyone else to intervene if you do things on time? If you are doing this, our role would simply be a catalyst and I would be happy to support you. But if things don’t happen, we have to do what is expected of us to follow the law.

I worry about how the plans will be executed in the future. Who is going to do these developmental activities in the future, the community or somebody from outside? If it is someone from outside, I am really scared because they may not understand the way we live here.

ATDC: I do not draw a line between Aurovilians and non-Aurovilians. There is only Aurovilian behavior. Whoever is living in the spirit of the Charter is welcome to work with us.

I understand that the Governing Board can call the shots if they feel the residents are not aligned. The Governing Board has made it very clear they feel the Residents Assembly is unable to make large decisions and they feel the need to push them through. However, I am concerned that there has been complete radio silence from the Working Committee, and from the Town Development Council. There was no posting that the JCBs were coming that day and the legal position was never explained. It seemed that vehicles came and started cutting trees without prior intimation to the community. I’m puzzled why there was no prior information for such an important step. Was it an oversight because things were happening so fast, or was it deliberate? And will there be a change going forward if we continue with fast development?

ATDC: Things happened quite speedily and during that period we lost two or three members from the TDC. I agree that we should have taken more effort to communicate but we did not have all the possibilities to do it at that moment.

Secretary: I agree we could have been a little bit more tech savvy, but the fact is that this decision to create the Master Plan was declared in 2010, and even in 2012 all the Working Committee members have signed they agreed to it. If anything, I think there’s been an overdose of communication in the six months I have been here. We have had over 50 meetings, not only my office, but we also went to the Youth Centre and Darkali.

I am for the city but I was deeply hurt by the way it is happening. Because this place is mainly about human unity, and we cannot split the community by bringing the police here. Mother said clearly no police, and there has to be space for our community processes because they create human unity. Please find a compromise and offer our youth something in exchange before the bulldozers come if you want to create unity here.

Secretary: The Mother did say no police and we respect this. However, these buildings in the Youth Centre were unauthorized buildings. We should not take the law into our hands and build something in the middle of what was intended. When it started, the work was done in broad daylight. We have all the evidence that there were children, women, babies, being thrown on the JCBs and we had to call in the police to restrain people from hurting themselves. Yet the work came to a grinding halt. Senior officers suggested continuing the work in the evening when there would be no residents there, and children and women would not be coming to stop the work, so that is how it was done. In any other part of India, if there is a cable that has to be laid, even if it has to go through your own land, you would not be allowed to stop it. And here the land is owned by the Foundation, we are all stewards.

I’ve never seen this community so split, in pain. For me, building a city involves the humans first, and I think our present planning is lacking that. The Dreamweaving team made a presentation that was very collaborative and hopeful. Will you allow this process to take its full power and stop the JCBs entering Auroville in early January so we can have peace to collaborate?

Secretary: It’s in our hands. Why do we not want to respect something that the whole community has decided? I hear beautiful instances about how the Matrimandir was built: everybody was involved. Can’t we get our young people involved in planting trees rather than obstructing vehicles which have to do their work? If we all joined this process, it could result in a beautiful transformation, not just of brick, gravel and sand but also of consciousness. Can’t we have weekly sessions or some way in which we can raise our collective consciousness? Because as The Mother has said, this is not a city that is going to be built on the outside. The more we plumb into the inside, the city will get built.

The Dreamweaving process began about four months ago and we have been having conversations since then with Omar and David and Professor Balkrishna Doshi. This is going on and we want all of you to participate as this is a very nice professional way of doing things.

The Master Plan does allow flexibility but not for the basic things. If you’re designing a house, you can decide the kitchen is here and the toilet is here. But you don’t decide to put the toilet in the kitchen: that is not the flexibility we are talking about. So we have to respect the basic layout, but the Dreamweaving has infinite possibilities to design what happens within those spaces. The Dreamweaving will go on, but the other work will also go on and the Dreamweaving will help us realise all those elements of the Crown we want to have.

ATDC: I beg to differ when we say we have first to create human unity and then build the town because why, when Mother founded Auroville, did she ask an architect to come up with a plan, and then give a Charter and policy decisions about how things had to happen? Mother created L’Avenir, and the Foundation translated this into an official body, the ATDC, which is legally accepted by the Government of India.

What is the strategy regarding the Crown? Some land Auroville has not been able to buy is on the line of the Crown Road. I was expecting that this process would start with purchasing this land. Also, still I don’t think there is a mobility plan for Auroville. So what are the planned roads for, for cycling, for walking, for buses, for cars? This also needs to be clarified.

Secretary: A mobility plan is being worked out. We sent a proposal for land acquisition to the Government in September. The question the Government is asking, you have already grabbed about 3000 acres of land and there are only about 3000 of you, what is the justification for us to give more? So we have to tell them that our intention is not to be a land grabber, but to be truthful about the purpose for which we got the land. If we do what we have to do, we can morally show we have come here to be beacons for the rest of the world.

I want to correct a certain narrative about the Master Plan meetings. It was a beautiful collective movement in which people from all walks and all visions participated to protect the land for Auroville. On 28th July, 1999 we managed to have it approved by almost 100 members of the Residents Assembly. There was only one dissension. But there was a caveat. It was clarified that the document is aimed more at the protection of the Greenbelt and, apart from the zoning, does not give detailed proposals for the development of the city area. It said the more detailed planning would be an ongoing process and all interested were wholeheartedly encouraged to participate. On this basis, the Master Plan profile, which was different from the final document sent to the Government of India, was approved.

Another resident: This is correct regarding the July 1999 meeting. But the July Master Plan was not accepted by the Governing Board who sent it back saying we had to do a better job. This Plan was the one the Residents Assembly approved in December, 1999, and it contained the Crown, the radials and the outer ring road.

According to me, the final Master Plan that was approved by the government is not written in stone. It doesn’t mean that everything that is mentioned has to be implemented exactly as it is written there. Actually the ATDC has already made a change by making the Crown way much smaller, and I think that other adjustments are also possible. So my plea is not to consider it as a Bible but as a guideline which helps us to come together and work for the development of the city.

ATDC: There are three layers of the Master Plan. One is the preamble, another is the legal aspects, and the third thing is suggestive aspects. The right-of-way measurement is mentioned as suggestive so we had the opportunity to reduce it. But it is clearly said that the Crown, the circularity of the Crown and the Zones cannot be changed. There was also an RA mandate for the TDC in 2007 which clearly says we are not to go against all these things. It says the Crown and the Zones are key elements, and the responsibility is given to the TDC to ensure that these things are implemented. We as members of the ATDC have a certain mandate and a certain role to perform and we would be failing not only the community but also the Government if we do not do it. It is our dharma.

I wonder why you started the Crown work by focusing on critical areas like the Youth Centre, rather than clearing the way in undisputed areas. Why was there not more time given to the youth to come to an agreement with you? I have a clear feeling that if you had given us one week we could have come to an agreement and implemented what is there now, but in a very peaceful manner.

ATDC: The work did start in the least contentious area in 2009 with the first paving of the Crown. We went from area to area where there was no contention and that’s where it stopped. The only places left for the Crown at present are the communities of Bliss, Darkali, Center Field, and the lands we don’t have.

It’s been framed that the people who are opposing what is going on at the moment are against the city and I don’t think that is true. Secondly, we talk about Mother being very explicit in her plans and we have a detailed plan which Mother gave us. I don’t think that’s true. I’m familiar with what Mother said about Auroville in discussions with Satprem, Roger, Paolo etc. and the only thing I am aware of where Mother said ‘no’ to other people’s suggestions, because she had seen it, was with the structure of the inner chamber of the Matrimandir. Everything else was open to discussion; what she didn’t see she was willing to yield to the experts. So to say that Mother said the Crown had to be like this is nonsense as far as I’m concerned. She approved the plan that Roger gave her but it is not written in stone. If we could stop framing this as an ‘us’ against ‘them’, as some for Mother and some against Mother, or for the city and against the city, we might have a chance to move forward.

ATDC: Mistakes have been made and we should learn from them, but mistakes are not only made by the ATDC. Mistakes happen everywhere. When we take steps boldly, mistakes are bound to happen. Perhaps we have waited 53 years because we wanted to take every step perfectly. In my view, what is happening at present is surgery, and it is unfortunate that we have come to this level.

The meeting can be watched at https://youtu.be/MRiMbubfvio