Auroville’s population declines

Closure of Entry Service

Our crisis has had a direct inpact on our demographics. An example of this was the closing of the Entry Service, having the locks to their office changed overnight in the second week of January. Some final interviews took place till March and a few Aurovilians were recently announced, but all told only twenty Aurovilians (of which two were returning and one a youth) and eight Newcomers joined in 2024. With entry policy part of our legal battles, the population figures this year are consequently even more unusual than ever.

Bear in mind too as a larger context that not reaching 50,000 people was being quoted as a sign by the present administration of why Auroville was ‘failing’, making the metric of population an indicator of our communal success.

Decline in number of Aurovilians

With that as background, this year has some unusual changes, the most notable being that the Auroville population declined by 68 people from 3368 in 2023 to 3300 in 2024.

Reduction of foreign national populations

Concurrently with this reduction in overall size, the other notable change has been the decline in the foreign national populations. The French, for instance, whilst still the second largest population after the Indians, are down thirty-six people to 403, Germany, in third place, reduced its number by twelve to 227, Italians six down to 165, Americans seven less to an exact 100. Our Dutch colleagues lost two to 96 and Russians four to 72. It’s only the Brits who stoically remain unchanged at 65. Other notable decreases were the Israeli population reducing by four to 44, the Swiss losing three to 35 and the South Koreans five to 46. Of the smaller in population size nations, Brazil lost three to have only seven folk living here, and Hungary went down from eight to four. The only country outside of India to gain was South Africa, no stranger to conflict, gaining one extra citizen to become eleven strong. The international character of Auroville has been heralded as another metric of our communal story, so this decline is noteworthy.

Growth in the Indian population

In opposition to the decline of the foreign population, the other continuing trend is the growth of the Indian residents. For the first time ever in Auroville’s history, they cross the halfway mark to become 51.5% of Auroville’s total population, a jump of 2%. They number a neat 1700, an increase of thirty-two from last year. As noticed in last year’s article, this breaks five decades of the Indian population remaining within the 42-48% band.

Deaths increasing

A continuing trend from last year was the increase of deaths in Auroville. At the time of writing (late November 2024) 25 Auroville residents had passed away in this calendar year, along with 13 friends, associates, volunteers, in-living parents, longtime workers etc. a grand total of 38 deaths. Last year at an equivalent time, the totals were slightly less, 36 passings, of which 23 were Aurovilians. At the time, that was the highest ever total.

With entry paused, only 20 Newcomers and 25 deaths of Aurovilians, we can presume that the reduction of sixty-three people reflects those who have officially declared to be leaving Auroville. Anecdotally, people have commented on Auroville feeling less full than before, but it’s only in these figures that we get some formal indication of this. With Entry closed, it’s hard to be clear if we are still as attractive a spiritual destination as we were before our recent challenges began.

In summary, in 2024 Auroville continues to be in flux, with a decline in population, foreigners becoming a minority and the Indian population continuing on an upward trend and also becoming a slim majority of the total residents. Time will tell if this is the new trend or a blip. We await next year’s statistics with uncommon interest.