Reflections on the Governing Board

AVToday: How would you assess the present Governing Board?

Claude: It is difficult to say. Judging from the minutes of its first meeting held in November 2021, [see AVToday # 390, January 2022] the Board members hold strong views about how Auroville should develop, which in itself is a good thing. At the same time, we know that many, if not all, Board members have negative views of the Aurovilians. The narrative in government circles in New Delhi is that Auroville is not developing as it should, that accounts are cooked, and that there is a lot of fighting going on between various Auroville factions. This narrative is mostly false.

Could you explain?

It really upsets me that Board members say that ‘Aurovilians have done nothing’ in the past 55 years. They ignore that in 1968 Auroville was a desert which has been greened by the Aurovilians; that the Aurovilians themselves built the Matrimandir; and that all the land has been bought with private funds, and nearly all the houses, all the commercial buildings and most of the service-oriented buildings have been built with private donations. What has the government contributed in all these years? The answer is ‘not much’. The Government has helped manifest some infrastructure, such as part of the former Crown Road, which recently was dug up to make place for the new Crown Road, helped create several school buildings and CRIPA, and funded two apartment buildings. But other public buildings, such as Pitanga, a major part of Future School, the Town Hall and the Multi Media centre have been funded privately or received funding from national or international organizations. In short, all the people I know have worked hard, very hard, for Auroville and it pains me that this is not acknowledged – rather, they are demeaned.

Then ‘cooking the books’. I believe that the Governing Board is mistaken in its views that huge mistakes have been made. In the last one and a half years, the Board has initiated forensic audits of the accounts of many commercial units, even re-auditing accounts that had already been audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. But nothing substantial has been found and, as far as I know, no commercial unit has been accused of any serious wrongdoing, and certainly not of ‘cooking the books’. If a unit was found to be fraudulent, doubtless the Board would have initiated action and informed the community. The International Advisory Council, too, asked for proof of any such misdoings, but it was never given.

Lastly the in-fighting. It is true that Aurovilians often disagree on things, and that this has hampered Auroville’s development. But this is not unique to Auroville residents. Even the members of the Auroville International Advisory Council report that they cannot agree on many issues. I would say that it is regrettable that the Secretary, who announced when she joined Auroville that she was good at harmonizing people, hasn’t been able to do so and instead has expressed her own preference by not taking into account a truly collective effort like the Dreamweaving process.

How do you evaluate the functioning of the Board?

There are a number of problems. Firstly there is the question to what extent the Board members understand the spiritual background of Auroville. Many present members may have read some of the works of Sri Aurobindo, but have they read Mother’s Agenda and have they read all that The Mother said about Auroville? Have they understood the importance of the Supramental descent in 1956 and of the concept of the surhomme [‘overman’, the intermediary being between the human being and the supramental being, eds.] and its consequences for Auroville? Have they realized what The Mother meant when she announced the birth of a new world, in which Auroville has a specific role to play? “Auroville wants to be a new creation expressing a new consciousness in a new way and according to new methods,” She said in August, 1969.

I have my doubts that this has been understood. The present administration consists of people who seem to think as technocrats. In that thinking, there is a hierarchy where they give orders which are to be obeyed. This explains the stand of the Board that they are Auroville’s supreme authority. The appeal the Board filed in the Madras High Court against the judgement of Justice Abdul Quddhose [see AVToday #398, September 2022] shows this view. The Board disagrees that the three authorities mentioned in the Auroville Foundation Act, namely the Governing Board, the International Advisory Council, and the Residents’ Assembly, jointly manage the Foundation. The Governing Board argues that it alone has the power, the superintendence and the management of the Foundation, and that Auroville cannot be administered by the people of Auroville. We have yet to see if the appeal bench of the High Court shares this view. But in my opinion, it goes against what The Mother wanted for Auroville.

Secondly: it is a problem that the members of the Board do not stay in Auroville and are not approachable. Usually they receive information only from one source, e.g. the Office of the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation. During the chairmanship of Dr. Karan Singh, Dr. Kireet Joshi and Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, the Board members would stay 3-4 days in Auroville and individual Aurovilians could approach them directly, and there would always be a joint dinner at the end to which many Aurovilians would be invited. That personal interaction is not happening at present. Moreover, the community is not informed when and where a Board meeting is scheduled to happen; many Board meetings are held outside Auroville or on Zoom; and the minutes are published months afterwards, such as the minutes of its July and November 2022 meetings which were only published in March 2023. So we can’t interact directly with them, tell them about our work, our problems, our concerns, our aspirations; neither do they have an opportunity to share their observations directly with the residents. Most of the Aurovilians are very much aware of their own limitations, and would always welcome constructive criticism, which is very different from defamation.

How do you see the role of the Governing Board and the Government of India?

Let’s make it abundantly clear that the Auroville Foundation is an independent statutory organisation, and not a part of the Indian Government.

Regarding the Government’s role: We can only be grateful to the successive Indian governments for their unmitigated support of Auroville, starting with Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi who gave her full support in the 1970s and early 1980s, the more so as she was dedicated to The Mother. It was her government that submitted the first resolutions on Auroville at UNESCO. I once visited her house in New Delhi, which is now a museum. A copy of a volume of Mother’s Agenda was on a table near her bed. That was very touching. Indira had a deep reverence for The Mother; the Agenda contains many instances of her contact with the Mother during the 1971 war in Bangladesh and earlier in 1962 during the invasion of India by China.

Subsequent governments continued that support, such as in the form of creating a special visa policy for Auroville and through the giving of yearly and special grants. Prime Minister Modi too has been very positive about Auroville, as we learned from his speech given in Auroville on the occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary [see AVToday #344, March 2018]. It was confirmed to me personally by French President Mr. Macron, who I met at a reception in Delhi in March 2018. He mentioned to me that he had met with Prime Minister Modi, who had spoken in very positive words about Auroville. A senior official of the French embassy in New Delhi later told me that Mr. Modi had spoken about Auroville even earlier, in April 2015, when he had gone to UNESCO in Paris, and offered flowers to Sri Aurobindo’s statue there.

The Government’s role, in my opinion, should be to protect and support Auroville – which means protecting the lands of Auroville against speculators, helping to acquire lands to consolidate the city and greenbelt areas, helping to build accommodation for those who want to join Auroville, but do not have the funds to contribute to a house or apartment, and giving a protection for visas to the foreign-born Aurovilians who have chosen to live here. I am not arguing that the Government should not take action against foreigners who do mischief. Those should be dealt with according to the law. But those who have worked in Auroville for the best part of their lives and donated their savings to Auroville should be guaranteed the right to stay. Many, if they were told to leave India, would have nowhere to go and have no funds to sustain themselves.

And the role of the Governing Board?

To give the freedom to the residents of Auroville to grow and develop, including the freedom of making mistakes. And, of course, to support the full functioning of Auroville’s Residents’ Assembly and the working groups chosen by it, such as the Working Committee, the Town Development Council, the Entry Board, the Auroville Council and the Funds and Assets Management Committee with its subgroups the Budget Coordination Committee and the Housing Board. This is my view. We have shown between 1988 and 2021 that we could harmoniously work with the Governing Board and the Government.

The Secretary has spoken about bringing 1,000 volunteers to Auroville. What is your view on this?

The first obvious question is of course, why? In principle, we welcome whoever wants to join, but we never advertised for people to come and join Auroville. The growth is organic. Has this idea come up because the Board is not satisfied with the cooperation of the Aurovilians or because they want a spurt in the population growth? Then, where are these volunteers going to be housed, and what are they going to do? Are they going to take over jobs from Aurovilians? Most importantly, what is the motivation and what is the quality of aspiration for these people to come to Auroville?

I remember when Prime Minister Modi visited Auroville in 2018, a group of people was to present different aspects of Auroville. Like the others, I was allotted a subject, but when Mr. Modi arrived in front of me, I suddenly changed my topic and quoted a discussion with Mother in the Agenda of 4th April 1972, when Mother says: “Coming to Auroville does not mean coming to an easy life – it means coming to a gigantic effort for progress”. I also explained that Aurovilians do not own any immoveable assets; even assets created with personal funds belong to Auroville. “Auroville is not for everybody,” I concluded. I don’t regret having changed my script.

Those who complain about the slow population growth of Auroville should realize that, to join Auroville, you have to find or build accommodation, e.g. a house or an apartment. But as all immoveable assets are owned by the Auroville Foundation – there aren’t many possibilities to rent – people have to make a non-refundable donation to the Auroville Foundation to the value of the house or apartment, in order to become its steward. Nowadays, we are talking about amounts between 30-60 lakh rupees [US $ 35,000 – $ 70,000]. Losing the right to stay in Auroville (or, in the case of foreigners, losing the right to stay in India) means losing one’s donation, and that is not an attractive proposition.

What are your thoughts about the future?

I hope that the appeal judgement will clarify how Auroville is to be managed. Whatever the outcome, we must find solutions for solving the disharmonious situations that have arisen. Some people say that we have to pursue mediation or what was done in that South Africa, truth and reconciliation.

Another issue is that Auroville must find new ways of functioning and introduce more freedom and less control. A former Secretary, Mr. Bala Baskar, once said that Auroville had added its own bureaucracy on top of the horrendous Indian bureaucracy. That has to change.

In the larger perspective, I rely on what Mother said when she started Auroville: “The city will be built by what is invisible to you. The men who have to act as instruments will do so despite themselves. They are only puppets in the hands of larger Forces. Nothing depends on human beings – neither the planning, nor the execution – nothing! That is why one can laugh.” [September 1969] That is our only support in these difficult times.