Auroville in Delhi

The opening event was the Auroville Expo at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, a sprawling campus in the heart of New Delhi. For three days starting November 22nd, posters and audiovisuals displayed thematic areas of Auroville: the City, the International Zone, Sustainability & Green practices, Outreach & Education, and Auroville’s Organisation. Aurovilians interacted with the public, some Auroville products were on display, and visitors could join an ‘Awareness Through the Body’ workshop and play the WasteLess ‘Pick it Up’ game. ‘Coffee Ideas’, ‘Sciro Pizza’ and ‘Bread & Chocolate’ provided drinks and snacks.

Later that afternoon a panel discussion on the theme ‘Auroville: City for Human Unity’ was introduced by Dr. Karan Singh, the Chairman of the Auroville Foundation. “Many people in India and New Delhi hold Sri Aurobindo in high regard but do not know much about Auroville,” he said, while stating that “no other country could possibly have hosted Auroville and passed the Auroville Foundation Act.” Highlighting some of Auroville’s achievements, such as building the Matrimandir and converting a barren arid desert into a lush green area, he stressed that “the whole point of Auroville is that it is an adventure of consciousness, bringing about a rise in collective consciousness.”

The second speaker was Frederick, who told the story of how he came as a young boy out of a troubled Germany to India. “I came and met the Mother and her touch changed me. Something which had always weighed on me was suddenly removed when she took me and led me within.” He joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, then heard that She wanted to start a city ...” and it dawned on me that She wants us to be construction workers, to prepare the ground for a space in which something new and fresh can grow. She told me on my 21st birthday that there was no living matter in the land, go and plant some trees. We went out and planted 21 transformation trees. We were following a high command, without an idea what we were meant to do. Behind was Sri Aurobindo, our captain and path finder; in front was The Mother, who was the absolute for me. Then the first settlers arrived, and there was this inauguration, like a scene from a Spielberg movie: cars, buses, cycles were coming from all sides, and then suddenly a silence fell. And into that silence a voice spoke, the voice of The Mother, broadcast from her room in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, inviting all men of goodwill who aspire for a higher life to join Auroville. And then She read Auroville’s Charter.”

Recalling the difficulties of the early days, “the motley crowd coming to Auroville at the end of the 1960s – a bit of a shock for the Ashramites, the fights with the Sri Aurobindo Society, the Auroville Emergency Provisions Act followed by the Supreme Court judgment that the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Auroville are not a religion,” he spoke of the marvel that the Indian Government had tabled the Auroville Foundation Bill in Parliament.

“You will remember the memorable words spoken by lawyer Chittaranjan Das in the Alipore Bomb Case in defense of Sri Aurobindo: ‘Long after the controversy will be hushed in silence ... his words will be echoed and re-echoed, not only in India but across distant seas and lands ... ’. A similar impact, said Frederick, had been created by the words spoken by Dr. Karan Singh defending the Bill: ‘This Bill could conceivably be the most important single Bill ever passed by this House, because it deals not simply with material manifestation, not even with the collective human manifestation, but it deals with something which is still beyond the ken of human consciousness. It deals with an idea which is an arrow into the future.’

“Auroville now has a Foundation, a legally identifiable basis. But another danger looms: we are becoming an institution, we are becoming systemized. Where is the fire of the pioneers? ‘I invite you to the adventure, come what may,’ She said. That’s the real challenge: going from within to the without. The Matrimandir is ready, a place for going within and finding that source that carries us all. And from there, we’ll have to look up and forward to become a partner to India and the world, and share the results of the many experiments and research conducted at Auroville.”

Sir Mark Tully, the former Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation, said Auroville expressed two hopes about how Auroville will develop in the next 50 years: that the city of Auroville will grow without losing its principles by sticking to the original plan and that its influence on the rest of the world will grow by it becoming a shining light on how people can live together in harmony. “The Auroville concept has never been more important than today in a world where materialism and consumerism is doing enormous damage to society,” he said.

The panel discussion that followed was led by Dr. Ronald Meinardus, Regional Director of the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. Panelists were Aurovilians Anu Majumdar and Dr. Jürgen Axer, Governing Board member Prof. Sachidananda Mohanty, and Professor Makarand Paranjape of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The panelists gave their views on where Auroville stands today on the eve of its 50th anniversary; on urbanism and to what extent Auroville can be called ‘a smart city’; the challenges in fulfilling Mother’s Dream; and how they see Auroville in 50 years.

Anu took the lead. “After 50 years I sense a great opening forward. What we have travelled so far is not even half the journey. At its birth, Auroville was given a Charter, which was put in a stainless steel container in the urn in the amphitheatre, and the map of the city plan which was placed under the Banyan tree. These are the symbols of the spiritual and material experiment Auroville is intending to be. I believe that a lot of answers will be given when we really start building the city. Auroville was initiated as a planned city, which should now be approached in a more conscious way. If we are able to do that, it will have the power of material and spiritual development.”

Answering the question if Auroville is a smart city, she replied that Auroville’s emphasis is on humanity and human unity. “Our smartness is different. We do not shy away from technological inventions, but ours lies in being able to address the material from a spiritual perspective. Its smartness will be its ability to work from ever higher levels of consciousness.”

For Jürgen, the focus is on education. “Is Auroville able to create an educational environment which generates an aspiration for something which is going to come? On the surface, you do not see any particular difference with schools outside. But there is one. Not the curricula or the subject, but the attitude and aspiration of the teachers and students.”

Professor Paranjape recalled his first visit to the Ashram and Auroville in the 1990s. “When I entered the Ashram dining room, I felt a welcoming force of the Mother, a force of love. That carried me through. It was about my own journey, a journey towards transformation. Then I went to Auroville and queued up to visit the Matrimandir, which at the time was far from ready. It was a very restless place. Twenty years later I was there again and then felt that these people, the Aurovilians I had met, are not normal, there is something different about them. I wondered what it was and found the answer in Anu’s recent book. Auroville is a community without an ego. The Mother intended Auroville to be the hub for a supramentalisation. Auroville is a place for collective yoga, and the prime condition is that you have to shed your ego. For me, Auroville is a great experiment not only in managing matter and material resources in a manner that is less predatory, but really an experiment in consciousness.”

Dr. Sachidananda said that he had been seeking answers experimentally and existentially to some of the questions that have bothered the 20th century man. “One answer I found in Sri Aurobindo’s book War and Self-Determination, in the chapter Self-Determination, which gives an answer to the questions Auroville has been facing. From a conventional point of view, Auroville appears to be insignificant. But its dimension of collective living with people from more than 56 nationalities who have invested their own personal money and energies in this project is one of its unique selling points. In Auroville, people are living together and experimenting with a model that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

Dr. Karan Singh brought in the time factor. “During these 50 years, the Aurovilians have not been able to come to a consensus on the design of the town plan with pro and anti Galaxy proponents. My prayer is that they get their act together.” Frederick replied that he has lived through many polarities, but wouldn’t be able to say if Auroville has been delayed or fast-forwarded because of them. “We all know that what we are doing is not for ourselves. We are, as Dr. Kireet Joshi said, coolies of the Divine. We have to reach a third space where both viewpoints are complementary and not confrontational.

The Galaxy is the underlying tectonic plate of Auroville, but it cannot be pushed as a fixed and unalterable plan. It is the diversity which gives the impetus to move into the future.” It was a view shared by Governing Board member Dr. Anirban Ganguly, who argued that “50 years is nothing. We have cities in India that are eternal. Auroville has just started. ‘What next’ can be safely left to The Mother. Auroville is a spiritual smart city, it is through the churning that it is advancing to a new prototype.” Prof. Mohanty concurred: “The Mother, when speaking about education in the Ashram, said She was looking for living souls, then only will we be successful. For Auroville, it is the same.”

UNESCO

The second event took place on November 24th at the new UNESCO building in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave. Here too, a panel discussion took place, this time on the theme of “Learning to Live Together: Translating UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 into practice”. This Goal states, ‘By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.’

Mr. Aoyagi Shigeru, Director and UNESCO representative, gave the welcoming address. He mentioned that over the years the General Conference of UNESCO had passed 4 resolutions on Auroville (in 1966, 1968, 1972 and 1983) and said that the fifth resolution had just been passed a few weeks ago. “Auroville and UNESCO are born for each other and have to continue to support each other.”

Dr. Karan Singh, who is India’s representative on UNESCO’s Executive Board, clarified that the fifth resolution on Auroville had been adopted with full consensus. The official text is still awaited, but is likely to be identical to the draft resolution which he had sent to Auroville earlier. [see News in Brief, Auroville Today # 340 of November 2017].

Picking up on the theme of the panel discussion, Dr. Singh expressed his regrets that the work of Auroville in education has not yet found its way into the mainstream of education in India. “All the great Indian thinkers have their own systems; Sri Aurobindo and The Mother developed ‘integral education’; Rabindranath Tagore was able to express his educational philosophy in educational experiments at Santiniketan; Mahatma Gandhi’s educational philosophy is followed in some schools in India; Jiddu Krishnamurti’s at his Rishi Valley School. But those philosophies have remained peripheral to the Indian educational system. As the Government of India is working on a new educational policy, I hope that Auroville can present its experience and ideas to the relevant government committee.”

The panel discussion that followed was facilitated by former Governing Board member Ms. Ameeta Mehra. The panelists were Dr. Anantha Kumar Duraiappa, Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP); Ms. Smita Vats, Convenor of ITIHAAS, an NGO active in the area of inclusive heritage education in New Delhi; and Aurovilians Frederick and Inge.

“How do you see the future of education, how do you see it evolving in the coming years, keeping in mind the idea of education to bring about harmony, sustainability, peace, collective and individual, and a growth of consciousness?” asked Ameeta to the panelists.

Inge replied, speaking of her own experience of growing up in Auroville. “It is important to acknowledge that there are two sides to every human being, and by providing an environment of light rather than of shadow and the right tools we can move in the right direction. The main challenge of the future is to provide an environment conducive for children to find their own inner beings.” Frederick concurred. “Auroville is about directional living which has as core value a learning to become. The Mother’s ‘Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life’ is the educational directive of Auroville. And these are not just words. What Auroville is trying to live is not uniformity, not even unity: it is a fierce burning oneness.”

The experience of Smita Vats and Dr. Duraiappa is very different. “I work with 500 children every day and I see a lot of division, anger, and moving away from secular ethics,” said Smita. “What goes on in them is so different from what we are thinking – in fact it is very worrisome. We have found that connecting minds and hearts is much more important than subject learning. We try to move children towards dignity, respect for natural resources, respect and understanding for each other, and acceptance of gender equality. We try to teach them compassion and dignity. But in Delhi, these are depleting values.” She stressed that the financing of education is a problem. “We need the best minds in education and we need to pay them well. Jobs in education should be the first choice of one’s career, not the last as it is at present”.

Dr. Duraiappa expressed his personal frustrations with the system. “There is such a dichotomy between UNESCO’s SDG and the ground reality. In India, we have a school system that pushes competition at the expense of the other – I always say we have one of the best predatory training systems in the world, right from the start. The people we are taught to admire are the ones who make the most money: we do not celebrate our scientists, our intellectual giants. Our priorities are all wrong. The aim of India’s education is twisted. Right now, education is seen as a means to create a rational producing economic agent, and hopefully a good human being as well. We need to flip it: the goal is human and societal flourishing, with the economic agent as a side product. The idea is not just to build intellectual intelligence, but also finding a balance between intellectual and emotional intelligence and mainstreaming this within schools.”

Can that be done? “At the MGIEP we have understood the need to educate empathy, mindfulness, compassion and critical inquiry. We have the experience that children who have been given those courses have a higher productivity in math and sciences and are very well-balanced, and that their bullying and stress levels have gone down. But we estimate that this may take three generations or 75-100 years if we start now seriously. And that’s the problem with UNESCO’s SDG. It doesn’t ask the question what type of education should be given. But education should be ‘learners-central’. Every child learns differently, and we can provide boutique education because we have the technology to do so. It just needs leadership to do it.”

In the discussion with the audience that followed the question of ‘identity’ came up. “An identity is a necessity in a social system,” said Smita. “But identities create similarities as well as differences. We need to teach children to focus on similarities, not on differences.” How can that be done? Dr. Karan Singh provided the answer: “All of us have multiple identities. The idea that one has only one identity is no longer valid. If you have an inner spiritual centre, you can have many identities around it and flourish. But if you do not have one, you become conflictual and eccentric.” The crux then is to promote the individual’s inner development.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch

The third event took place at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch, where the exhibition materials were presented for over a week, however without interactions with the students and their parents. “This should have been better planned, so that a few of us could have stayed back and been present,” admits Inge. “The students at The Mother’s International School [a public secondary school which is run by the Sri Aurobindo Education Society, an agency of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, eds] would definitely have enjoyed the interaction with Aurovilians. When we were setting-up the exhibition materials, we were already surrounded by students who carefully read all the panels and asked questions. This interaction we need to do in future, as these students are fully aware of the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and may be very interested to join Auroville in future. It was a missed chance.”

Evaluation

Was it worth it? The question troubled the organizers and the Aurovilians who had come to Delhi to man the stalls and interact with the public, as the overall attendance of not more than 500 people had been limited. “Delhi is a very competitive space,” explained Dr. Karan Singh. “There is an overload of events, there are huge traffic congestions, and if you are not absolutely interested, you won’t go. A limited attendance is common to many events. But what matters is not how many people attended, but how many people have learned about it.” With more than 10 reports in national newspapers and with offers from various places in India to host the Auroville Expo, the aim to create awareness on Auroville seems to have been achieved.