The latest attempt at taking over Auroville is about to take place on September 30 at the upcoming UNESCO meeting.
Why does that matter? And how does it relate to our campaign?
Firstly, we as members of the Residents’ Assembly of the Auroville Foundation, would like to express our profound gratitude for UNESCO's support of Auroville since 1968. UNESCO has passed five resolutions in support of the Universal Township in-the-making in South India since 1966. We are also profoundly grateful to India, the host country of this unique experiment for material and spiritual research.
Over the last fifty-four years, Auroville has become globally renowned for its many significant achievements in the fields of afforestation, sustainable architecture, renewable technologies, innovative farming, participatory democratic governance, integral education, art and culture, collective economic organisation, gender equality, collaborative rural development, conflict resolution, social enterprise, recycling and waste management, and sustainable water harvesting.
Our efforts in these fields are a means to work towards and achieve one of the primary goals stated in the Auroville Charter: Human Unity.
However today, we, as residents of Auroville, appeal to UNESCO, as many of these long-standing endeavours and achievements are in great danger. Since the appointment of the present Secretary of the Auroville Foundation, Dr. Jayanti Ravi, in July 2021, by the Ministry of Education, and the subsequent appointment of a new Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation, the residents of Auroville have been confronted with repeated intimidation, violence and constant provocations that undermine harmony in the community.
The intense degree of authoritarian pressure threatens Auroville’s core values, collective practice of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings and philosophy, and contradicts our goals and ideals.
The situation has escalated dramatically over the last ten months, commencing on 5th of December, the anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s passing, with the unannounced, unauthorised midnight bulldozing in the forest. In the following weeks several buildings in the Youth Centre were demolished with the destruction of 900 trees that included endangered and rare species.
A comprehensive takeover of the community’s participatory institutions of governance and its internal communications has followed, severely limiting its freedom of speech and violating our human rights.
Despite recent orders from the Madras High Court and National Green Tribunal, physical destruction of community buildings and infrastructure, forest removal and the takeover of crucial collective governance structures continues.
Therefore, the residents of Auroville express their profound disagreement with the Sri Aurobindo’s 150th Birth Anniversary event in UNESCO on 30th September 2022, which has been organised without any prior information nor consultation with the Residents’ Assembly of Auroville. Such public events are routinely being hijacked by authoritarian forces to spread lies and misinformation and create further polarisation.
We appeal to the Ministry of Education & Ministry of Culture of the Government of India to reconsider the program and restructure the event. We also humbly request UNESCO to consider that hosting this event in its present organisational structure is against the democratic values firmly upheld by it.
We seek for the restoration of dialogue and collaboration with the respected authorities of the Government of India as it has always been.
We seek the reestablishment of our participatory governance, with the ideals of Human Unity at its heart, as it is the way in which Auroville has been built until today, based on the ideals prescribed in the Auroville Charter.
The Residents Assembly has unanimously supported the recent court verdict to roll back unilateral orders issued by the Secretary's office (see graph on top).