Authoritarianism

In early September 2025, a number of long-standing residents and duly-appointed community representatives received emails from the AVFO’s ‘Admissions and Termination Scrutinizing Committee’ and ‘Admissions and Terminations Registry’.

“What to make of French writers, who, to stay on the right side of the occupation authorities, decide to write about anything but the one thing all French people are thinking about, or worse still, who, out of cowardice, bolster the occupants’ plan to make it appear as though everything in France continues as it did before?”

Maël Vidal was born and grew up in Auroville before going to France to pursue higher studies, where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social anthropology.

Societies are very complex organisms. Authorities in totalitarian societies attempt to diminish the complexity – which they see as a threat to asserting their will – by rigidly controlling the population through indoctrination and various instruments of coercion.

On 14 August Dr. Karan Singh, who has been Chairman of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation for more than 20 years, briefly visited Auroville.

Four years into this crisis, I find myself searching for clarity on how we move forward. Yesterday, I came across a series of writings by Shannon Willis on Soft Rebellion that articulated what many of us have been intuitively practicing all along.

Over the past three years, the government of India, Auroville’s host country, which had been a rather discreet and benevolent partner in previous decades, has decided to precipitate the course of events and intervene vigorously in the Town’s construction.

After touring Pablo Picasso’s museum in Barcelona, we could not resist buying a print of his masterly sketch of Don Quixote and his companion Sancho Panza, the characters from Miquel de Cervantes’ novel about the adventures of Don Quixote.