Auroville Council getting up steam

The Auroville Council has made a promising start, says Sindhuja, one of the new Council members, “particularly considering that it consists of many young people who have no previous experience in working in an Auroville working group. The dynamics are catching up and it is working out.” The Council is busy studying the revision of various mandates and policies, such as those of the Housing Service, the Funds and Assets Management Committee, the Entry Policy, the Friends of Auroville policy and the mandate of the Residents’ Assembly Service. “Some of them are quite outdated and do not reflect the reality of today” she says. The Council has called various individuals to give feedback and help rewrite the policies, after which they will be submitted to the residents for approval. Another challenging task of the Council, that of dealing with conflicts between Aurovilians, is being handled together with Koodam, the Auroville mediation centre.

“What hasn’t worked as anticipated,” says Sindhuja, “is the interaction with the resource persons. In the ‘Participatory Working Structure’ as originally conceived, the Council would be assisted by resource persons as and when needed. Resource persons were meant to be a resource for specific tasks: they were meant to study them, interact with others on the topic, come to a conclusion and report back to the Council with a recommendation. But only a few resource persons have been doing that consistently, while others are less involved in the actual execution of tasks. Another factor that needs more clarification is the definition of roles and responsibilities. In meetings, for instance, with sometimes 18-19 people attending, it is often not clear who all carry the responsibilities of the decisions made. Some Silent Listeners also attend these meetings, but they do not speak, and are there only to observe the functioning of the Council”.

Yet Sindhuja feels that the ‘Participatory Working Structure’ is a good development because it obliges the Council members to work in a participatory way, calling resource persons for advice, forming sub-groups and delegating decision-making rather than holding on to it. “The culture of forming sub-groups allows us to talk less and work more, as only the final decision on a topic needs validation from all the members. The work can go faster, with a single person, or sometimes two, in charge of a particular topic. Because of this, and thanks to Koodam greatly helping with resolving conflict situations, the current Auroville Council is a lot more efficient in its working and carrying out of tasks than previous ones,” she says.

A problem to be addressed is the lack of full-time members and the fact that not all members are fully active. “All of us have a part-time job elsewhere. I signed up for half time, but have landed up doing much more. Others have less time to commit. It means that a few people, by necessity, have to do more. The 2 new members who will come out of the Selection Process will be of great help to the team.”

The Study Group, which conceived the structure of Council and its support groups, continues advising the Council on how to build a fully functional team. “Once a month we all try to meet together for a day and this definitely helps the group dynamics,” says Sindhuja. The work includes changing the image of the members of the Council. “Old habits die hard and many in the community still see us as ‘politicians’ rather than people doing a community service. There is still a lot of mistrust and we are subject to quite a number of attacks.” More trust and encouragement from the community would help a lot, she feels. “Yet, the experience of the first four months together has been positive and uplifting, if nothing else.”