To our readers
Editorial — By Editors
Keywords: Community media, Media policy, Auroville Today, Funds and Assets Management Committee (FAMC), Publicity, Auroville crisis and Change
This is the last issue of Auroville Today.
While this issue was in the press, the editorial team learned that a new media policy for Auroville is about to be implemented. We do not feel we can continue to function under this policy, so regrettably, because we are very aware of our responsibility to you, our readers, we have decided to stop publication. This additional page features a few articles that we had planned to publish in our December issue. Now we offer them to you as a final goodbye and thanks for your support.
The Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation, in its 68th meeting held on 5 December 2024, had approved the new media policy; but it was only made public on 7 November 2025, one month after the term of office of this Governing Board had ended.
On 10 November 2025, the Funds and Assets Management Committee (FAMC) appointed by the Governing Board called a meeting of all Aurovilians involved in media. We were informed that the FAMC plans to bring all Auroville media activities together under a single, large media department. The main aim is to unify how Auroville represents itself to the world and to foster a ‘positive image’. To ensure compliance with this objective, all media material will require approval by an overview group before it can be published.
On the face of it, this is not unreasonable. Clearly it is important that there is unity in how Auroville’s purpose and ideals are presented to the world. The issue, however, concerns how to document the way in which a community of seekers is trying to realise these ideals. Auroville, as Mother emphasised more than once, is about experimentation, and experiments – particularly a unique spiritual experiment like this one which lacks any precedent – can be messy, chaotic, unpredictable.
If one adopts the communication strategy of the corporate world, the ‘messiness’ involved in designing a product must never be mentioned: the only image to be propagated is a positive one. But Auroville is not a product to be sold on the open market. It is a working experiment, an attempt to realise a new way of being.
At Auroville Today magazine, we have always felt it is important to document this process as honestly as possible, celebrating the successes but also reflecting on the failures. We have done this not only because we feel that such a unique experiment needs honest documentation but, above all, because we have an abiding faith that Mother is continuing to guide this project; and that every detail, every struggle, may have its importance in the larger scheme of Auroville’s evolution, even if we do not immediately grasp its significance or, indeed, how apparent oppositions can be reconciled at a higher level of consciousness.
The new media policy will not allow us to do this, as the focus will have to be upon ‘positive’ news only, and we will have to conform to a particular narrative regarding what we publish about Auroville. In addition, we were informed that new executives may be appointed to hold office along with or to replace the existing executives, presumably to ensure compliance with the new media policy.
At the same time, while we have complied with all requested procedures, a substantial donation made to Auroville for Auroville Today has not been released to the magazine.
Given these developments, we have come to the difficult decision that this issue, which coincidentally is published on Auroville Today’s 37th birthday, will be our last.
We are immensely grateful for the support we have received from you, our readers, over the past 37 years.