The Auroville Foundation Bill

But more than miracle, one has the impression of inevitability, of a Force intent on propelling us into the next stage of our growth, of our adventure as a collective. Therefore we have decided to publish the Minister’s introduction of the Bill to the Indian Parliament and we had an interview with three members of the Task Force (a group set up by the community to work intensively on formulating proposals for the new act and to maintain the connection between the government and Auroville) who were in Delhi during those final weeks. They share with us their understanding of the bill, its consequences and their feelings concerning its significance for themselves and for Auroville.

Sri Shiv Shanker, the Minister for Human Resources, introduced the Auroville Foundation Bill to the Indian Parliament as follows:

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have affirmed that humanity is rapidly moving towards the realisation of an actual unity. They underlined the necessity of promoting internationalism so that the East and the West can meet for mutual benefit and mutual interchange. They also considered that the ideal of the Family of Man, which is central to Indian culture, should become a living vibration all over the world. In order to hasten this development, it was thought necessary to establish a small experimental field, where people from different parts of the world can come together and engage themselves in cultural, educational, scientific and other pursuits of research, aiming at human unity. It was against this background that Auroville was set up in 1968, and Mother announced its Charter which underlined the aims of unending education, and of material and spiritual researches aiming at the actualisation of human unity.

At the initiative of the Government of India, UNESCO passed Resolutions in 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983 commending Auroville to those interested in UNESCO’s ideals. They underlined the importance that Auroville had begun to receive at the international level.

Funds for the development of Auroville were received from different organisations in and outside India as also from the substantial grants received from the Central and State Governments. However, serious problems arose after the Mother left her body in 1973. In order to create necessary conditions in which smooth development of Auroville could be ensured, the Central Government was forced to take over temporarily the management of Auroville from Sri Aurobindo Society and others under the Auroville (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1980.

Initially, this Act was valid for five years, but it had to be extended further in 1985 and 1987 as the efforts made to arrive at a solution in consultation with the residents of Auroville and Sri Aurobindo Society to provide for the permanent management of Auroville had not succeeded. Efforts were, however, continued and a broad consensus has now emerged that it would be in the interest of the further development of Auroville to establish a body corporate called the Auroville Foundation.

It may be mentioned that during the last 8 years since the take over of management of Auroville, Auroville has developed, and the residents of Auroville have taken a number of initiatives in various fields, including afforestation, soil conservation, water conservation, agriculture, integrated rural development, educational research, scientific research, cottage industries and computer technology. The residents of Auroville have also developed a self-organising system. All this needs to be encouraged and consolidated.

The Bill which is before us has certain special features. In the first place, the Bill seeks to acquire all properties relatable to Auroville which are currently owned by several societies, trusts and other bodies. These assets were created by Sri Aurobindo Society and other bodies founded by the residents of Auroville substantially with the aid of donations received from different organisations and individuals in- and outside India (including Central and State Governments) for purposes and activities of Auroville, which under the proposed legislation, will become the responsibility of the Auroville Foundation. The Government, therefore, proposes to acquire these assets without payment of any compensation and vest them in the proposed Auroville Foundation whose primary objective shall be to encourage and promote ideals and programmes envisaged in the Charter of Auroville.

In the second place, there shall be an International Advisory Council to advise the Central Government and the Governing Board of the Foundation on matters concerning development and management of Auroville. The existing Auroville Act has also the provision for the International Advisory Council. This International Advisory Council has played an important role in guiding the activities of Auroville throughout the last 8 years. The Council met every year and reviewed the progress of Auroville and made suitable recommendations to all concerned. Considering that Auroville aims at international collaboration and human unity, it is appropriate that the Auroville Foundation should have a high level International Advisory Council.

As far as the day-to-day activities are concerned, they will be looked after by the residents through appropriate autonomous arrangements, which will include Residents’ Assembly and its Working Committee. The idea underlying this arrangement is that the residents of Auroville should have autonomy so that activities of Auroville can grow under an atmosphere conducive to harmonious growth.

In the third place, the Bill envisages that the management of the Foundation will vest in a Governing Board, as constituted by the Government from time to time. In order to avoid all controversies getting perpetuated in the Governing Board, the Government has decided in principle that none of the existing societies or trusts will have a right of representation on the Governing Board. All nominations to this body will, therefore, be on an individual basis.

The powers and the functions of the Governing Board and the Residents’ Assembly are so envisaged that the governing body would be able to ensure that Auroville actually gets the kind of management which is appropriate to the ideals of Auroville. The Governing Board also will be able to provide an impartial assessment of the progress of Auroville, not only for the benefit of those engaged in the development of Auroville, but also to the Parliament and the public at large.

Auroville is to be looked upon as a vision which has a great potentiality, and this can be of tremendous service to our country and the world. Mother had declared that the earth needs a place where the difficulties of human nature can be dealt with in the context of an arduous process of the change of human nature. In such an endeavour, difficulties can be expected, but the Government is determined to help the process of development of Auroville in such a way that the aims and goals of Auroville are made more and more realizable. Research is the watch-word of Auroville and the Charter of Auroville has underlined that Auroville will be engaged in the material and spiritual researches. What has been achieved so far is perhaps a beginning and a good beginning. Educational research in Auroville has just started flourishing. Research in the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother has also received a good deal of encouragement. Research in the field of alternative sources of energy has also made some headway. The experiment in establishing a new ecological balance has succeeded to a very high degree. Above all, the atmosphere of Auroville has begun to vibrate with activities of youth and the ideal of unending education is being promoted in every field of activity in Auroville. This process must be encouraged and developed. The way is very long, but it is hoped that this Bill which aims at the establishment of the Auroville Foundation will be seen as an important aid in the growing development of Auroville.

The Process

In November, 1987, the Auroville Act was due to expire. The community felt that it needed more time to explore possible solutions to the major problems confronting it, and consequently requested the Government to grant an extension to the Act. This was by no means a foregone conclusion as the Government had previously stated that no extension would be possible, and the extension was only granted after the Minister asserted that, “We may find the solution in months, even weeks.” The extension was for one year, with the clear message that no further extensions would be forthcoming.

Faced with the need to come up with something entirely new after November, 1988, the community began to reorganize its internal structure and created a “Task Force” of seven long-time Aurovilians with the specific task of formulating, with the assistance of the community, specific proposals to solve our problem with the Sri Aurobindo Society. These proposals were to be submitted to the Government, who were eager to achieve a permanent solution.

In April, 1988, some members of the Task Force and other Aurovilians met the Minister in Madras. The Minister presented the idea of a Governing Board for Auroville, an idea which had first been mooted the previous October. The Aurovilians told the Minister that they supported the proposal but stressed that the Governing Board should consist of independent, eminent people, not representatives of the Sri Aurobindo Society, the Ashram or Auroville, as the latter scenario would be likely to perpetuate the problems of the past.

Thereafter began a period of confusion and uncertainty. Rumours were rife, little information was available. As the November deadline approached, a number of Aurovilians travelled to Delhi to clarify the community's position and concerns. In the final nerve-wracking days, a series of what one of the Auroville participants called “miracles” occurred (these included obtaining two interviews with the Prime Minister at very short notice). The Bill subsequently passed through both Houses of Parliament without opposition.

The contents of the Bill

Q: What freedom does the Residents’ Assembly have under the new Bill? How much autonomy can we expect in terms of managing our affairs and dealing with internal problems?

Frederick: There is a strong feeling that the Government does not want to be involved. But they have to have an accountable, responsible body to be there to supervise. As long as we function within the broad outlines of Auroville and its aims and ideals, I think we have autonomy. If we stick to the ideal, I think we are free.

Q: What is the function of the Governing Body?

Alain: Ultimately, you have now a system where no one group can claim it runs Auroville. In Auroville itself, it is clear that the Residents’ Assembly can enjoy as much freedom as it needs, so long as we are together. The Governing Body can hardly act independently of the Residents’ Assembly if you look at the Act. The Governing Body can be seen to represent the national level of India. People of eminence will act as an interface with India at large. Then you have the international level – the International Advisory Council. So it is interesting to see that the Foundation consists of three different levels and no one level alone can claim that Auroville is their project.

Q: Does this Bill mean that the Charter of Auroville has legal recognition?

Alain: The properties of Auroville have been acquired without compensation being paid, and this in itself reinforces the first part of the Charter. It is as if the Charter of Auroville is going more into matter.

Q: What will happen if there are internal differences in the community and petitions are drawn up and sent?

Frederick: I would think that there is an expectation that a certain amount of natural justice, a kind of tolerance of the minority is practised in Auroville. I think maybe what we have experienced here in a search deep within we have sometimes acted out on a gut level. And I think a more rational approach will be expected in the future.

Q: I think that at the moment we have a possibility to clean up the old problems of Auroville before we come to a new kind of life. One of the old problems is the “Neutrals”. Should it be the task of the Task Force to clean it up before the Act comes into force, so that we can have one common future?

Frederick: I don’t think you can delegate it to one particular group. I think there is a strong pressure to clean up our mess. When the Administrator comes he may play an important role in interpreting this point. My feeling is if we allow this again to become a cause celebre which creates a lot of dust everywhere, we have lost a chance. At this stage, Auroville should really have many rooms.

Q: Will the new Act facilitate the issuing of visas to Auroville residents?

Alain: Logically, it should be easier than before, but this will have to be taken up by the Governing Board.

Krishna: The whole international community has been recognized by this Statute. Therefore you cannot deny them visas. Therefore you can take it that it is much easier now. But it’s all going to fall back on us. We have to initiate with the Governing Board to take it up.

Q: Can the Act be appealed?

Alain: The act can always be challenged, but I think that the grounds for challenge are very flimsy.

Q: Why did the Government decide not to make us an Institute of National Importance?

Krishna: This was a small legal objection from the Law Ministry. When you create a new Institution or Foundation, you cannot in the same Act recognize it as an Institute of National Importance, since it has to have existed for some time to justify this. It could easily have been explained that we were not trying to recognize the Auroville Foundation as an Institute of National Importance, but Auroville itself, which has existed for twenty years. But it was not explained.

Q: Which Ministry are we now dependent upon?

Frederick: The Ministry for Human Resource Development is the coordinating Ministry for Auroville in the Foundation Bill.

Q: Will the Foundation be the official channel through which other Governments will be able to participate in Auroville’s development?

Krishna: Yes.

Alain: The fact that this status has been given should open a whole range of possibilities that have not existed so far.

Personal impressions

Q: What does it mean to each of you personally to have been involved in this process, and what do you feel the Auroville Foundation Bill represents in the evolution of Auroville?

Alain: What is always moving when it happens, and it happened very powerfully this time, is when you see the Force operating. The sense of miracle that Krishna spoke about is not always easy to get across. But for us, there was always the feeling of a powerful concentrated thing, using all kinds of ways, but so precise. I had the feeling, as Mother said, that the future is calling us. Sometimes we have the feeling that we are trying to push something like Sisyphus’ rock. Maybe we don’t realize enough that it is also driven. This time the feeling was particularly compact. You feel that if there is such a power behind, then everything is possible. So for the future of Auroville, we are given now a new possibility. Things are open again for a new phase. The ball is truly in our court.

Frederick: What I sense is that Auroville has suddenly been propelled onto a totally different scale, something which only reminds me of the Inauguration because that was really a wide, broad scale that Mother put up there. For the last few years, I found Auroville was getting smaller and smaller and smaller and suffocating. What I felt in the Rajya Sabha when the Charter was read out was as if suddenly there was again that big scale. You have to understand that the Auroville Foundation is not Auroville. Auroville is one of the three parts. It’s a local field station where we are trying out our laboratory. But Auroville also has a national and an international level. The two other bodies are not there just to serve us. It is a total mutuality. It was such an abrupt breaking of an old cocoon, of a shell and there was suddenly such a vastness, that there was a reaction. Suddenly something we were accustomed to has gone.

Krishna: Having seen the process in Auroville unfold over the last eight years or so, this was the most intense experience in the sense that we were tossed about from day to day with unexpected situations, and yet always something would click. It kept moving. I talked about these series of miracles. It was really every day that it was happening. So the experience was intense from the point of view of us truly being the puppets as She called us. And to me that’s an endorsement. So let’s now believe that She is acting. I would like to share with every Aurovilian, as many times as I can, that let us now believe She is acting, and let us now go along with that process. We have been given independence. Let’s deserve it now. The whole world is looking at us now.

Frederick: I’d like to convey when we address ourselves to Auroville International, that there should not be a feeling that it’s happening here and we are giving you a bit of information about what’s happening in the core. We should understand that in effect Auroville is happening all over the place. Mother once said that there was a moment in the beginning of Auroville, when it wasn’t quite clear whether Auroville was going to be located at one place or, because there was not enough receptivity in that locality, it would spread out and come up in small pieces all over the world. I think for the first twenty years it has rooted itself here, but that other action, which is not exclusive, I think is becoming very strong.