Exploring the Causes of Auroville's Crisis

A Deeper Dive

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It is inevitable at this moment in the unfolding of the crisis in Auroville that we take a deeper dive into our search for the roots of the disastrous takeover that is undermining the purpose for which Auroville was created, disrupting entirely the foundation that was built during the past fifty years for accomplishing the Mother's vision. The ruling of the Supreme Court of India on March 17, 2025, reversed the judgment of the Madras High Court of August 12, 2022, consequently affirming the Governing Board's claim to be Auroville's sole administrative authority. In its appeal against the MHC ruling, which has kept the ruling on hold for the past two and a half years, allowing the Governing Board's appointees in Auroville to disrupt and dismantle the community's organization, life, and normal functioning, it outlined in detail its intention to deny the role of the Residents' Assembly and the rights of the community members to determine their own, and Auroville's, future. The SC ruling has in effect allowed the government's interpretation of the Auroville Foundation Act of 1988 to stand, which most residents of Auroville, as well as the lower court’s rulings, have understood to be a violation of both the letter and the intention of the Act, and of the purpose of Auroville according to the Mother's vision. The 'Auroville in Crisis' report of January 2025,¹ has recounted in detail the adverse impact of this interpretation of the Act on the life of Auroville, supported by hundreds of pages of actual and official documentation of the events of the past three years. The hope was that it might lead to a better understanding of the gravity of the situation and possibly help to prevent the adverse ruling of the Supreme Court that has now occurred, and avert the further disasters that are likely to follow. It is now important to take a deeper and more direct look at the root causes of this disaster.

Many strong indicators of the direction that our exploration must take are to be found in the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Governing Board, which took place at the end of January this year, just a few weeks prior to the Supreme Court's ruling. According to the minutes of the 68^th meeting of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation, on Dec. 5, 2024, the meeting began with an introduction by the Chairman, R. N. Ravi, of the newest appointee to the board, K. Kailashnathan, followed by a recap for his benefit of the activities of the Foundation. Before reviewing the Chairman's introduction, we should note from the beginning that Chairman Ravi is also the Governor of Tamilnadu, and prior to that appointment he was Governor of Nagaland and Meghalaya, 2019-2020, and National Security Adviser to the current government. K. Kailashnathan, recently appointed Lieutenant Governor of Pondicherry State, was formerly Chief Secretary to Narendra Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. And in this vein we may note also, that the Secretary of the Auroville foundation, Dr. Jayanti Ravi, was also a Principal Secretary in the government of Gujarat at the same time. We shall therefore presume that these are political and ideological appointments, and as such constitute a violation of the statutes of the Auroville Foundation Act concerning the constitution of the Governing Board, which allows for only two government appointees, and those members are currently two officers of the Ministry of Education. In further support of our presumption, another appointee to the GB is Aravindan Neelakandan, an author and historian who is the editor of the magazine, Swarajya, and an ardent supporter of the Hindutva movement of India's ruling party. According to his recent recorded presentations on that webzine, he believes that the Dravidian movement in Tamilnadu politics is out to destroy Brahminism, in a manner similar to the Nazi extermination of Jews in WWII. He also believes that Hindus in general are in a battle against this Dravidian and leftist movement to destroy Hinduism, and that Modi is “reversing the process” and is “the starting point of the coming Hindu rebirth.” Similarly, the board member Goutam Ghosal is a Hindu nationalist, but also a distinguished scholar of the literature of both Rabindrath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo, and he is a professor at Santiniketan, and also a musician. One might imagine that he fits somewhat awkwardly in this group, but he has developed a theory of the “new nationalism” based on his idea that Sri Aurobindo's views didn't change from the time of his writing in the Karmayogin and in the later Arya. His theory is that only Sri Aurobindo's language evolved. But he is simply wrong. The one thing that all these members of the Governing Board seem to share is an actual disinterest in Auroville itself and in the purpose for which it was created by the Mother. The appointment of these individuals is not only a violation of the Auroville Act, but it is a direct contradiction of the anti-religionism of the spiritual orientation that the Mother has given to Auroville, and of the spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. According to the Charter of Auroville, which the Government of India is committed by the Auroville Act to uphold and protect, the purpose of Auroville is to embody an actual human unity, and it is in no way meant to represent a religion or a political party.

According to the board's minutes, in his introductory remarks, the Chairman said, “over a period the Auroville has tended towards an antithesis of its core objectives. Instead of a place for sadhaks and devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, it became a refuge for some persons with vested interests. The current GB with deep sense of their responsibility took initiatives to try and bring Auroville back to its intended mission.” We are reminded of his remarks when he addressed the community on Nov. 17, 2022, exactly one year after his appointment to the board and the only time he has addressed the community (ref. Auroville in Crisis Report/ Annex E/Dossier). In that hour-long diatribe, at the end of which he took no questions, he said, for example, “I see a lot of commercial activities going on. Is it consistent with the ideals of Auroville? We find the sadhana element grossly deficient. The ideal has to be preserved. … We have got cases of substance abuse, money laundering, embezzlement, fraud, land grab. How do you find stewarding being taken as ownership? Somebody who has been at a place 40 years says, “it is mine,” is it Auroville? … Auroville needs a shock, an external shock to bring it to its senses, bring it to its ideal. A status quo business as usual will not work.” Many statements in this address indicated his view that people in Auroville are expected to live the life of sadhaks in an ashram, betraying a total lack of understanding of what sadhana means in a secular environment and the Mother's explanations of the difference between the ashram and Auroville. It is also clear that these were the views of a “top cop,” as the Secretary has referred to him, inferring the presence of criminal activity. In fact, the “cases” to which he referred were not actual cases but allegations made in a report by an independent, non-Aurovilian individual named Vikram Ram, during the period prior to this board's appointment. He was a disturbed individual, by his own account, and for that reason was denied admission as a resident of Auroville. Nonetheless, the previous GB conducted an extensive investigation of his claims, which it documented in the form of a report titled The Enquiry Committee Report, aka the Madangopal report. The allegations thus investigated were never charged and were subsequently refuted by an Auroville committee that determined them to be spurious and baseless. That Enquiry Committee Report is still being used by this administration, however, to support its primary rationale for interference in Auroville's development and for taking over its governance.

In the minutes of the 57^th meeting of the Governing Board, its first meeting, held on Nov. 2, 2021, fifty-one action items were proposed in the areas of governance and organization, township development, land, economy, education, and entry process (admission and termination of Auroville residents). In other words, the agenda of this board contained a list of concerns that were already in place even before it had convened. And the action items it proposed were based on various preconceived notions about the condition and circumstances of Auroville's development, stated in brief as follows: 1) there is a proliferation of groups, decision paralysis, absence of work plans or governance and organization that ensures implementation, a culture of stakeholders instead of voluntary contributors; 2) scattered ad hoc development, haphazard infrastructure development, lack of focus on the development of the township, low population dispersed over vast area, housing development needed to welcome more people; 3) private residential and commercial developments, slow progress in city land consolidation, some lands of the Auroville Foundation encroached upon, some lands of the Auroville Foundation unutilized or under utilized; 4) not clear how many Aurovilians are committed to contribute through work, cost of living seems high, still a monetary transactional society, no pan-Auroville annual budget, no medium and long-term economy plan, large number of trusts and units, etc., etc. Under the topic of education (5), it is noted that “there is a mixture of conventional educational systems with the envisioned ideal of integral education.” And then, in the action items, “The Board noted that the Sri Aurobindo International Multiversity as an affiliating network for integral education, research, teaching, training and extension is a good initiative to be launched.” This idea of a multiversity based on a technological delivery system is a brain-child of the Secretary which she brought with her from Gujarat, along with the idea of information-technology-based Smart Cities, which were at that time a popular projection of the Modi government. It is conceivable that the board's early views of Auroville might have been based on reports received from the Secretary, who had been appointed and stationed in Auroville a few months earlier, and as such could be a product of her impressions. But, nevertheless, the point of view seems utterly lacking in any positive impressions that might equally well have been recorded, regarding the achievements of the community, its relatively successful functioning, its large range of creative activities, and its inherent integrity.

The minutes of the 58^th meeting of the Governing Board, held on January 18, 2022, which also include fragmentary minutes of the 59^th meeting, apparently held on April 22, 2022, begin to reveal more concretely the direction that this administration will take. The first item in this second meeting, two months after the first meeting, is the introduction by the Secretary of Dr. G. Seetharaman, IIT Thiruchi, as the appointed Officer on Special Assignment (OSD) to the board. Seetharaman had been the interim Secretary of the previous board and had submitted The Enquiry Committee Report to the Ministry. He will henceforth serve the Secretary, Dr. Jayanti Ravi, as the primary enforcer of the Office Orders of the Auroville Foundation by which it gradually takes over the administration of Auroville. In addition to his appointment as OSD, “The Board noted that the Auroville Town Development Council (ATDC) had elected Dr. G. Seetharaman as Member-Secretary with additional charge of finance and accounts.” These minutes also report that “It was decided to establish an Organization and Governance Committee to look into organization, governance and related matters with the following Governing Board members as committee members:

− Dr. Nirima Oza

− Dr. Gautam Ghoshal

− Joint Secretary, (ICC &Planning), MoE

− Dr. G. Seetharaman, OSD

− Dr. Jayanti S. Ravi, Secretary”

There was a brief mention only, in this meeting, of a very significant series of events that had transpired in Auroville between the board's first and second meetings. The minutes say, “The proposal of conducting a drone survey of Master Plan right-of-ways (RoWs) was approved. ...It was further decided that Crown RoW clearing and infrastructure work must proceed, while tree clearing can happen after the Stay issued by the National Green Tribunal (South Zone) in Original Application No.239 of 2021 is lifted.” After JCBs had begun bulldozing forest land and buildings in December, under orders of the Secretary, the community had held a Residents' Assembly Decision meeting (RAD), the community's decision making process in accordance with well-established procedures, proposing to pause all clearing on the Crown RoWs. The proposal had passed with 899 valid votes - 803 yes, and 96 no. And a case had been filed by members of the Auroville Community against the Foundation Office with the National Green Tribunal, which had then ordered a pause in the destruction of Auroville's forests. No discussion of this issue and its implications is recorded in the minutes.

In the minutes of the 60^th meeting of the GB, July 12, 2022, there is again only a minimal indication of the momentous events that had occurred since the previous meeting, but there is also a clear indication of the root causes of those events, and a clear indication of the course ahead that this administration will follow. According to the minutes, in Item No. 60.11, “The Board approved and endorsed the Standing Order for the reconstitution of the Auroville Town Development Council (ATDC) dated June 1, 2022, as per the Clause 3 (d) of the Regulations of Standing Order of January, 2011.” And in Item No. 60.17, “Review of the Admission & Termination Regulation to streamline the welcome of aspirants to join Auroville and criteria to continue participation and carry on furtherance of Auroville development as per the Charter; Key changes instituted in the following working groups:

- Auroville Town Development Council

- Funds & Assets Management Committee

- Land Board

- Integral Information Service

- Archival service with widened scope of work including digital expansion”

The “key changes” alluded to here included the unmentioned displacement of the personnel of each of the listed working groups, as well as others in various activities, and their replacement by appointees of the Foundation Office; taking over of the internal internet communication system and cancellation of Aurovilian internet accounts; shuttering of offices; and appointment of new members of the Working Committee, in clear violation of the Auroville Foundation Act. The community's responses to these actions had included an RAD vote on May 10, with 864 valid votes – 798 yes, 66 no – on the proposal to reject the Secretary's appointed members of the WC and to affirm those selected by the Residents' Assembly. A case was filed by members of the community in the Madras High Court, challenging the authority of the Auroville Foundation to reconstitute the ATDC which, under the Act, is the prerogative of the Residents' Assembly, as is the selection of the Working Committee. The MHC subsequently ruled, on August 12, 2022, that the appointment of a new ATDC by the AF was in fact a violation of the Av Act, as were its other Office Orders. And this ruling was followed by a decision-making vote of the community to reject the Office Orders of the Auroville Foundation, in accordance with the court's ruling, and to affirm the appointments made by the RA selection process of members of the ATDC, FAMC, Entry Board, Land Board, and Working Committee. This proposal was passed by a record number of 1161 valid votes - 97% yes, 1% no, 2% abstain. We should note here that a vote by only 10% of the Auroville community is considered valid under its well-established rules of order, or about 250 members at the time. Each of the issues reported here, on which the voting process was invoked during this period, was therefore participated in by a much larger number of community members than was required. These events have been extensively documented in Annexure E of the 'Auroville in Crisis Report,' and they clearly indicate a high level of community organization.

As mentioned above, the ruling of the MHC on August 12, 2022, was stayed on appeal by the Auroville Foundation, and remained stayed for almost two and a half years, during which time the Auroville Foundation Governing Board and Secretary were able to perpetrate extensive psychological and physical damage to the Auroville community and its environment, which constitutes the primary focus and content of the 'Auroville in Crisis' Report. The recent reversal of that ruling, and also of the ruling of the National Green Tribunal, by the Supreme Court on March 17, 2025, will theoretically permit this outrage to continue undeterred. The Justice of the Supreme Court who was assigned this case by the Chief Justice, and who made this ruling, was Bela M. Trivedi, who served as the law secretary to the Modi government in Gujarat when he was its Chief Minister, and she was a colleague of Dr. Jayanti Ravi. A wikipedia note in Justice Trivedi's biography, says: “Over the past few months, several cases have been reassigned to benches that include Justice Trivedi or others, contrary to regulations. According to the ‘Supreme Court Handbook on Practice and Procedure and Office Procedure’, cases should remain with the senior judge who first received them or a judge who is overseeing a related case.”

The purpose of this brief exploration into the root causes of the crisis in Auroville and the takeover of its administration by the Government of India, has been to review certain significant aspects of the authentic record of events, in order to provide documentary evidence in support of the thesis that these unfortunate events have little to do with the actual history and purpose of Auroville. Rather, they are the product of a conspiracy on the part of various ministries of the government, specifically the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education, along with the justice system, and officers of the Auroville Foundation, to further the personal, political, and ideological ambitions of a few individuals. These individuals and institutions should be held accountable for: 1) crimes committed by them against the members of the Auroville community, 2) violation of the Auroville Foundation Act, and 3) corruption of the message of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

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In the minutes of the 60^th meeting of the Governing Board, July 2022, we find another instance of the recurring item that seems to be the main priority of the Secretary. In Item No. 60.10 we read: “The Board approved the Smart City proposal of AVF and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with the support from Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). This collaboration would lead to a new wave of infrastructure development in the city that would amalgamate the aspirations of the citizens with the benefits of technology to open up a new window of services and resources & technological capabilities including supercomputing facilities, Modelling and simulation, Pollution monitoring, IoT, Cyber security as well as language technologies.”

Then, almost three years later, on April 5, 2025, we read in The Hindu newspaper: “The Auroville Foundation and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for cultural and technological cooperation. ...“These projects will be executed in coordination with Auroville’s Electrical Service, Water Service and Aurinoco in the coming months, marking the first step towards transforming Auroville into a ‘smart’ and efficiently-managed community,” the release said. ...A high-level delegation from CDAC had visited Auroville on March 28 and 29. CDAC Executive Director S. D Sudarsan, CDAC Director General Magesh Ethirajan, Secretary of Auroville Foundation Jayanthi Ravi and Officer on Special Duty, Auroville Foundation, G. Seetharaman, attended the signing of the MoU, the release added.”

While this scenario may indicate a certain tenacity on the part of the Secretary, which has characterized her behavior from the beginning, we should note that an article appeared in The Wire on April 1, with the rather ironic headline “An Unceremonious End to Modi's Smart Cities Mission, A decade after the promise to build 100 high-tech cities, and five years behind schedule, the scheme closes and questions linger.” The text of the article goes on to elaborate in some detail the nature of the problem, with relevant commentary: “The Smart Cities Mission was announced during Modi’s early days as Prime Minister when he was presenting India as a world power and himself as its strong leader. The overriding priority to project a Vishwaguru image reduced the definition of ‘smart’ into a curious mix of old schemes and high-tech dreams. … Originally, the Smart Cities Mission was scheduled to conclude its present phase by 2020, but extensions were granted because of hurdles in implementation. Finally, the government has decided to end it by March 31, 2025. … Unlike developed countries, there is no compact definition of a smart city in India or the programmes it needs. In developed economies, minimum facilities already exist, making it possible for them to concentrate on total digitisation and high-tech facilities. In India, the emphasis has to be on providing essentials such as food, housing, power and transport.” Considering that Auroville's current development has taken over fifty years, starting from absolutely nothing in a rural environment – with no trees, no water, no buildings, no electricity – and has been able to very gradually and organically grow the forests, farms, infrastructure, housing, and various social structures that constitute the township which now exists, it is not unreasonable to be skeptical about the ability of these facilities to support the Secretary's ambitious plans. Perhaps she is somewhat under the influence of the same type of illusions that Modi was in 2014. And it is this same kind of delusional mentality that seems to be behind the second of the Governing Board's most frequently cited rationales that it gives for the takeover of Auroville. They insist that no progress has been made in building the city, even after fifty years, because, they claim, the Aurovilians are responsible for deliberately delaying and obstructing its development. These government appointed individuals assigned with the mission of taking over the administration and development of Auroville seem to be incapable of envisioning the process that has actually taken place, in order for the development of a city to be imaginable. And even now, it is uncertain that the man power, money, infrastructure, and expertise that it requires will be forthcoming.

In any case, we see a clear example of the unrealistic nature of their orientation in the brief recap presented by the Chairman to the Lieutenant Governor in the 68^th meeting minutes. The Chairman said, for example: “There was the Master Plan of the Auroville before the GB, and the GB deliberated into why it was not implemented even after many decades. … The Mother formulated the Master Plan as per the dreams of Sri Aurobindo described in his Life Divine. Persons with vested interests started interpreting The Mother after her departure according to their whims. The current GB started implementing the Master Plan. However, it was met with obstructions in various forms including litigations. The challenges were met legally and the GB proceeded with determination towards fulfilling the dreams of The Mother, the implementation of the Master Plan.” Then the Secretary followed up with these remarks: “While formulating the Master Plan, The Mother gave a complete blueprint and did not leave anything to the imagination of others. The City has been conceived in such a way that it could be assembled as a jigsaw puzzle. In the year 1968, the Mother wanted that the city should be completed within 10 years. However, even after 57 years, the city has not yet taken a definite shape.” This is the narrative that the Chairman and the Secretary have repeated countless times, always with the same confused confabulations, apparently believing that their listeners will not know that the Master Plan was drawn up by Aurovilians thirty years after the founding of Auroville, and it was not formulated by the Mother. She did not give any blueprint for anything, nor did she dream of the Master Plan, and there are no such dreams described by Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine. There was of course a writing of the Mother about an ideal society which she titled A Dream, and there was a conceptual model of Auroville titled the Galaxy Plan designed during her lifetime. But neither of these things were formulated like pieces of a puzzle that could be easily assembled. They were symbolic of a much larger goal that she set for Auroville, to be achieved by spiritual means. The whole idea that is being communicated by these government appointees who seem to want to be the saviors and masters of a soulless Auroville, is foolish and delusional. If their rhetorical narrative has any value at all, it may be that it helps them feel justified in their attempt to quickly materialize a concrete city, with total disrespect for the lives of the people, and the environmental conditions, that actually exist, in the place where the vision of the Mother is actually meant to unfold, according to the Divine Will. But that certainly does not make their point of view either just or rational.

Nevertheless, at the end of the meeting, the board minutes again reiterate the two primary justifications for the takeover of Auroville: the criminal nature of the activities of the residents, and their deliberate obstruction of the implementation of the Master Plan. In Item No. 68.48, Decision of the Board, we read: “The Board takes note of all issues of non-compliance, violations and irregularities in Auroville. In exercise of its powers under Section 11(3) of the Auroville Foundation Act of general superintendence, direction and management of all affairs of Auroville, and in exercise of its power to discharge all functions of the Foundation defined in Section 10(3), the Board hereby empowers the OSD, Prof. G. Seetharaman. of the Auroville Foundation, to take all necessary steps and measures to address these and issue necessary directions and orders to the Residents to ensure compliance. The OSD would do this under the overall supervision of the Secretary, Auroville Foundation. The Board further notes that some of these violations are of a very serious nature. including violence, withholding of Auroville assets, building without authorization, visa violation, owning land in the Master Plan area of Auroville, and many others, which need to be taken suo-moto cognizance of and acted upon, giving due opportunity for the violating Residents to offer evidence to the contrary and /or correct course, following all principles of natural justice. This is especially important as a course-correction in Auroville so that Auroville may develop further without the shadows of the unsavory past dogging its move into the future, with its current Residents in alignment with its aims and ideals, to be an example to the Residents of the future who are waiting to join Auroville and participate in manifesting this City of the Future.”

Of course, the Residents who have lived in Auroville for decades and dedicated their lives to its development may find it difficult to discern those “shadows of an unsavory past,” or to recall having obstructed the development of the city, or committed acts of violence, or any of the other things that this Board fantasizes and is moved by to send Dr. Seetharaman to take cognizance of and act upon. But this is precisely the gist of the Governing Board's obsessional preoccupation, for the past two years, with creating regulations that will enable it to control the admission and termination of residents, the selection of members of the RA's Working Committee, and the financial accounts of all units and activities. And they have known from the beginning that if they do not create and impose such regulations and reinterpretations of the Act, the Aurovilians will do everything they can to resist and reject the extreme unreasonableness, and destructiveness, not to say madness, of their mission. Therefore we read in the minutes of subsequent meetings, for example:

60.11, Feb. 16, 2023: The Board noted the presentation of the Organization and Governance Committee on the need for defining rules, processes and regulations for the functioning of the Residents' Assembly.

66.06, Feb. 13, 2024: The Governing Board has taken on record the Notified following two Regulations—

1. The Auroville Foundation (Admission and Termination of Persons in the Register of Residents) Regulations, 2023

2. The Auroville Foundation (Framework for Selection of Working Committee) Regulations, 2024

It also noted the status of the following three Regulations pending with the Ministry—

1. The Auroville Foundation: Trusts, Units and Activities, Regulations, 2024.

2. The Auroville Foundation (Development Control in Green Belt Zone of Auroville Universal Township) Regulations 2024.

3. The Auroville Foundation (Constitution of Town Development Council) Regulations 2024.

68.19, Dec. 5, 2024: The GB discussed the need for amendment to the Auroville Foundation Act and Rules to remove the anomalies in them which are misused by a section of the Auroville community to stall the realization of the City and growth of the Auroville, GB approved the proposed amendments for further submission to the Ministry for their appropriate action for processing amendments to the Act and the Rules.

We of course know that, as of December, 2024, the new regulations, designed by the Ministry of Education, had already been notified into law, giving the Governing Board total control of the Admission and Termination process and also the selection of members of the Working Committee. And, not mentioned by the Board, we know that these Regulations had also been challenged in court and stayed by the court's ruling, on the grounds that they violated the Auroville Foundation Act. But the Board has gone forward with their implementation, despite that ruling, as we can read in the recent minutes:

68.37, Dec. 5, 2024: The GB approved the nomination of the following Residents for (a) the Admissions & Terminations Registry; and (b) the Admissions and Terminations Scrutinizing Committee who already gave their willingness to vet the process. The GB selected the following Residents based on consultations with Members of FAMC, the Working Committee and the working groups, who have given a panel of names ... for the ATSC and ATR from the Residents, (as specified in the Regulation).

It is likely, as they of course must know, that the Supreme Court will again reverse the lower court's ruling, and that the Governing Board will be “legally” enabled to pursue their agenda of totally disempowering the Residents' Assembly and controlling all aspects of Auroville's organizational structure and development, thus effectively “amending the Act” and “removing the loopholes,” as the Chairman put it, which might otherwise prevent these appointees of the Government of India from pursuing their vested interests, with impunity.

Postscript: As predicted, on 4-29-25 the interim order staying the implementation of the Regulation on Admission and Termination was vacated by the Madras High Court.

1https://rodhemsell.substack.com/p/auroville-in-crisis-and-the-way-forward