Auroville’s impact upon Kuilapalayam village

The students were hosted by Lalit Bhati of the Auroville Integral Sustainability Institute. Lalit, who has a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, explained, “It is now a well established fact and phenomenon that Auroville’s surrounding areas, especially the neighbouring villages, have been experiencing rapid growth and are on the path of a major urbanisation drive…. Auroville needs to re-calibrate its approach and capacity to take care of these and related challenges before it is too late.” He believes that very few Aurovilians realise how the landscape is changing, how market forces are moving in and that people buying land close by may have no connection with Auroville’s values: “a totally new reality is already existing.” Therefore, there is an urgent need for these studies “so that we can prepare and implement our suitable responses/proposals/policies in a proactive manner”. 

On 13 December the students made a public presentation of what they had learned. They had studied Auroville’s direct, indirect and induced impact on Kuilaypalayam village through four lenses: economic development, education, community services and women’s empowerment.

The impacts

Among the direct economic impacts they reported were increased employment rates, increased women’s participation in the workforce and greater financial literacy, as well as a shift from manual to skilled labour. They also noted that English education has increased economic opportunities. The indirect impacts included an increase in household incomes, rising education and literacy and a shift to tourist-oriented development, but the downside was an increase in housing prices and a diminishing of Kuilaypalayam’s sense of community. Many of the land sales are to outside investors, which means that residents are not benefitting from the market. Also, many of the enterprises opening up in the village are tourist-oriented and locals feel excluded.

The direct educational impact of Auroville on the village includes the fact that outreach schools offering low-cost education is leading to increasing enrollment and literacy rates, while adult education programmes are improving the literacy rate among women. The outreach schools also lead to greater community cohesion as they reduce caste-discrimination barriers. However, the rise of English has diminished the speaking of Tamil and valuing of Tamil culture. 

Indirect impacts include the fact that Auroville’s educational approach has introduced progressive learning methods to local schools, benefitting critical thinking, while increased access to education has reshaped family dynamics and elevated social status and pride.

However, while better education possibilities provide pathways for local residents to pursue new career opportunities, the mismatch between educational achievement and local job availability is leading to educated villagers migrating for work elsewhere.

Concerning the impact of the social services which Auroville runs in the villages, the students noted that there are initiatives which address alcoholism and offer mental health support for men, helping address domestic violence and substance abuse, while outreach schools provide healthy food, promoting community health and education, and sports programmes encourage girls to participate, bridging gender gaps and fostering equality. Auroville-run health centres also offer accessible services for local residents.

Finally, regarding women’s empowerment, they noted that women are a large percentage of the Auroville workforce, and educational programmes have provided them with better employment opportunities enabling upward mobility, while Auroville’s policies challenge traditional gender roles. Also, mental health programmes have decreased suicide rates. Social programmes, like women’s groups, have strengthened connections between women, giving them an increased sense of solidarity and safety and, generally, lead to greater respect and support for women in village society.

One of the students noted, “There is a sense that women hold more power now in the village, but they also saw empowerment at times as a burden because sometimes they are expected to take up more responsibility for the family if a man can’t or doesn’t want to work.”

Recommendations

In the second part of their presentation, the students made a number of recommendations, along with suggestions about how they could be implemented. The recommendations included the need to promote the Tamil language and culture through Auroville creating an official bilingualism policy; more of a mixed student body and a mixture of free progress and the state system for each school; and using sports programmes to further integrate communities and genders. They also recommend that there should be an Auroville-supported mentorship programme for young men and boys to sensitise them to the need to respect women and support their empowerment. Interestingly, they noted that many villagers still do not know much about Auroville or what it stands for, so they recommended creating more opportunities for villagers to engage with the Auroville community.

Possible next steps for Auroville include reviewing the recommendations from the previous three project reports for possible implementation and collaborating with the surrounding villages to create a regional plan for the bioregion.

Reflections

Given that the Canadian students had less than two weeks (further truncated by Cyclone Fengal) to survey the village, employing individual interviews and focus groups, what they came up with is impressive. Given more time, no doubt they would have investigated further how, for example, increased employment and education opportunities for women has “reshaped family dynamics”. Inevitably, a short-term study like this lacks such granular detail. Moreover, the students admitted that a gap in their research was the fact that most of their interactions were with groups holding power or with project holders rather than with ordinary people on the ground. 

Also, it is not clear why the study is titled ‘Pathways to Unity’ as the report does not mention to what extent the villagers feel closer to Auroville as a result of the reported initiatives and their impact. Nor was it mentioned if villagers still want to join Auroville, although one of the students noted that some interviewees said there should be an easier path for villagers to join if they wanted to, and suggested a fast track programme for those who have grown up in the area.

The big question, however, concerns whether Auroville will implement at least some of these recommendations. As one of the students put it, “Our role is only to set the stage,” and Lalit confirmed that “To build upon it is now our task.” However, the students noted that three previous Queen's student reports with recommendations [see below] still lacked any kind of implementation by Aurovilians. This points to an uncomfortable truth: that Auroville finds it extremely difficult to implement even those proposals which would benefit both the community and the bioregion as a whole. Why this should be requires further study. Some of the proposals may be unworkable for lack of financial and/or human resources, or because of Auroville’s limited ability to influence policy and development in the bioregion. And perhaps the attitude that ‘nobody from outside can understand Auroville or can tell us what to do’ remains prevalent in some quarters, leading planners and others to reject whatever does not immediately align with their current thinking.

Whatever the reason, it would be deeply disappointing if the efforts of students from Queen’s and elsewhere to improve the development capacities and preparedness for change both in Auroville and its bioregion go to waste for lack of effort to engage with the findings and to find ways of implementing the most important recommendations.