Dear international CHANGE.ORG petition signatories,

As the situation has evolved since the initial attacks with bulldozers, to include more bureaucratic bullying and intimidation, including the pressing of legal charges against Auroville residents we propose an UPDATE to the petition especially for international supporters.

We can't reach tens of thousands of signatories to ask their permission to update the original text, so we ask you to sign a NEW one. We will add this new one to the old and present them together when we get the chance to meet senior government officials.

This NEW petition focuses in more detail on the take-over of Auroville’s internal working groups and obstruction of Auroville’s Residents Assembly (one of the three bodies of the Auroville Foundation) thus stifling the genuine voice of the Auroville community.

Auroville residents have sent several representations to the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu. We are also defending our collective institutions in court. During all these meetings it is YOUR support that gives us strength and conviction! Auroville belongs to nobody in particular, it belongs to humanity as a whole.

Please read the petition text below and consider signing it by filling up this brief form: https://forms.gle/uhKUCuTTuYtXZcBp6

Please also forward this mail to other friends / supporters of Auroville based outside of India.

THANK YOU !

----------------- NEW PETITION TEXT: -------------

Petition to India’s President and Prime Minister  

from supporters of Auroville abroad 

June 2022 

We, the undersigned, are friends, well-wishers and supporters of Auroville living outside India. Some of us lived in Auroville years or decades ago; others have  supported one or another of Auroville’s projects; yet others have sent or raised  funds to the extent possible, or helped spread information about Auroville. Some of us have simply been drawn to Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s vision of a future humanity and wish to see it actualized in the important experiment that Auroville represents. And all of us have deep respect and admiration for Indian  civilization and culture, without which Auroville could not have taken root on Indian soil. 

We have followed recent developments in Auroville with great concern and  growing anxiety. In particular, through numerous reliable reports from diverse  sources, we are very disturbed to note: 

• Sustained campaigns of misinformation in an effort to denigrate Auroville’s bright achievements over several decades, which have in particular worked  towards the integration with the surrounding environment and society at  environmental, economic and sociocultural levels, even if much progress remains to be made; 

• The absence of an integrated plan of development of Auroville that would build on the above foundation; instead, a rigid and short-sighted focus on a  Crown Road as a “perfect circle” with 12 radial roads, with no adequate  studies of its environmental and social costs, and with the exclusion of most of Auroville’s own experts in urban development, landscape management, environmental conservation, water management, skill  development, etc.; 

• The systematic takeover of Auroville’s major internal working groups in the fields of administration, media and finance, resulting in the concentration of nearly all administrative powers in a few hands which do not represent the  community at large; 

• The takeover of Auroville’s email server, with many email accounts  subsequently blocked, which represents a breach of privacy; 

• The use of brute force from December 2021 onward, be it to send  bulldozers in under the secrecy of night, or to call the police and file police complaints for nonexistent “crimes”, and generally to intimidate the  Auroville residents, leading to widespread polarization and alienation, as pointed out by Dr Karan Singh, former Chairman of the Auroville  Foundation, in a recent statement; 

• The use of visa recommendations as a weapon to coerce foreign residents, many of whom have worked in Auroville for decades, into toeing the line of  the administration; as a result, residents entitled to five-year extensions have been granted just one year or even three months, while others have been kept waiting indefinitely; and many have had to endure objectionable visits to their homes by immigration officers asking irrelevant and privacy intrusive questions, such as their opinions on the current Secretary of the Auroville Foundation and whether they support her (after giving warning that those who do not will be thrown out of India). 

We consider that the current line followed by the administration is  diametrically opposed to Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s vision — a vision  of human unity, genuine collaboration and hope for the future. Indeed, in this year when Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary begins, to witness such abuse of power and widespread distortion of Auroville’s objectives is a particularly cruel irony. Nothing in the previous regimes, which boasted names such as Dr Karan Singh, Dr Kireet Joshi or Dr MS Swaminathan, could have led us to predict this abrupt turn towards a vindictive, authoritarian administration devoid of vision. 

We appeal to His Excellency the President of India, to the Honorable  Prime Minister of India, and to the Honorable Minister for Education, to  urgently intervene, to ensure that the present catastrophic course of  coercion and exclusion be abandoned, and to bring together all those  who have worked for decades for Auroville’s growth in a genuine spirit  of collaboration. It is not too late to use 15 August 2022 as a launching pad for a new positive phase in Auroville, a phase that will respect the Auroville Charter in letter and spirit, respect Auroville Residents’ guaranteed rights to organize themselves, and see that the Auroville Foundation’s Governing Board  and International Advisory Council fulfill their true mandate, which is to act as  mentors, guides, protectors and trustees. 

* * * 

“In tendering any advice to the [Auroville Foundation] Governing Board,  the [International Advisory] Council shall endeavour to secure that — (a) the ideals for which Auroville has been established are encouraged,  and (b) the residents of Auroville are allowed freedom to grow and  develop activities and institutions for the fulfillment of the  aspirations and programmes envisaged in the said Charter of  Auroville.” — Auroville Foundation Act, 1988 

“Collaboration does not mean that everybody should do the will of the  man who asks for it. True collaboration is a non-egoistic union of all  personal efforts to express and realise the Divine’s Will.” — The Mother 

“Auroville: ... At last a place where nothing will have the right to impose  itself as the exclusive truth.” — The Mother, February 1968