India’s Auroville was envisioned as an international community free of government, money, religion, and strife. It hasn’t exactly worked out quite as planned.

A DOZEN MILES NORTH OF Pondicherry, India, there is a town to which you already belong and already have citizenship, and which awaits your arrival.

To live there you will need to give up some of the comforts you may have grown accustomed to. No drinking, no smoking, and very little in the way of personal property is allowed here. You can’t own your own house; business and money is communal. Even more than goods, you will have to leave behind ideas: No politics or religion are allowed in this town.

Welcome to Auroville, the self-proclaimed “city of the future” and the “city of dawn.” Despite being in a rural region of India, this experimental community was started by a Westerner.

The “spiritual companion” of famous Indian independence-fighter, philosopher, and yogi Sri Aurobindo, Mirra Alfassa was a Jewish occultist and spiritualist born to an Egyptian mother and a Turkish father in France. She claimed to have inherited Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual essence upon his death in 1950. Going by the title “The Mother,” Alfassa was worshiped as the female incarnation of the divine, and was the first Westerner to become an Indian guru.

Alfassa established Auroville in 1968—a good year for experimental utopias—and on February 28th, 1968, roughly 5,000 people from 124 countries gathered to mix soil from their countries to mark the founding of a town that “belongs to humanity as a whole.”

Wanting her community to be a “universal township” meant to exist outside of nations, creeds, politics, religion, and economics—though one could say Auroville has all these things, just of their own making – Alfassa hoped that this new city would help bring Earth to a new consciousness of the “supramental.”

Intended to house 50,000, the city centers around a giant golden geodesic dome known as the “Matrimandir” or Mother Temple. Within the golden Mother Temple, silence is absolute, and a spiral ramp leads to “a 70-centimeter crystal ball in a gold mount” as well as a glowing “single ray of sunlight that is directed on the globe from the top of structure.” When there is no sunlight, the beam is faked by a solar-powered light. The neighborhoods of Auroville, with names like Aspiration, Certitude, Discipline, and Grace, are laid out in a swirling spiral galaxy shape.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of Auroville is the line which it walks between respectability and new-age cultism. While supported by UNESCO and the Indian government, the town also “dynamises” its water by having the water “listen” to Bach and Mozart. And while the town features a Evolution Laboratory – currently the town library— Aurovilians also race through their quiet Utopia on dirt bikes, the preferred mode of transportation.

Much more disturbing is that there have also been allegations of abuse of the locals, few of whom become Aurovilians, and tolerance of sexual abuse of local children who live near Auroville by visitors and guests at Auroville.

Today, 41 years after its founding and despite its having been designed for 50,000, Auroville is home to only 2,000 or so citizens, though the community comes from a diverse 44 countries. The Mother Temple still remains unfinished, and the town has built few of its proposed structures. Aurovilians seem little worried, though. In their words, “What is more important to Auroville than dates and numbers is the quality of everything, especially the quality and consciousness of its participants.”

One can stay as a guest at Auroville by paying a “guest contribution,” or a daily fee. So much for no economics.

Fifty shades of Auroville

The township near Puducherry that was envisaged as ‘belonging to nobody in particular and belonging to humanity as a whole’ is at the half-century mark. For five decades its residents have given up personal wealth and immersed themselves in service to the community. It is as good a time as any to evaluate the successful and not-so-successful results of this experiment in ‘spiritual communism’

Auroville is still evolving as per its Master Plan, but has grown into a city — well, a city of sorts, because it is still missing several urban features — there is no police station, for instance, nor a courtroom. Few roads are paved and most others have been deliberately left unpaved, unnamed and unlit. There is no pub (those who want to drink either do it surreptitiously or go to Puducherry next door), there is no bus terminus or railroad, no public transport, and no temples, churches or mosques.

What it does have is a stylish town hall, plenty of garden restaurants, schools that look unconventional, business units including farmlands, and a clutch of single-storey residential buildings. The defining feature of the township is the Matrimandir, a golden-domed meditation hall that has a specially-made crystal ball, on which a heliostat always focuses sunlight. The beautifully landscaped area around the Matrimandir has a largish amphitheatre. In its totality, Auroville closely resembles a university campus.

The real distinction, however, is that nothing is owned by anybody here. Every single asset is owned by the community, which is represented by the Auroville Foundation, which, in turn, is — hold your breath — owned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, and administered by a government-appointed retired bureaucrat.

The Indian government entered the picture by invitation.

When Auroville was first set up, the Sri Aurobindo Society legally owned all the assets. However, after the Mother’s death in 1973, friction developed between the residents and the society. The residents appealed to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to intervene. The society tried to fight off governmental intervention — and lost. The Parliament passed The Auroville Foundation Act, 1988, effectively taking over the ownership.

The foundation has a governing board, an international advisory council and a residents’ assembly. The board members are eminent personalities, and the incumbent chairman is the Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Karan Singh.

The residents’ assembly, assisted by a working committee, decides most matters, including the construction of buildings or issuing residence permits. It is within this governing framework that the experiment of ‘spiritual communism’ is being carried on.

On February 28 this year, the township will re-enact a symbolic event that marked the day Auroville formally came into being 50 years ago — people from 121 countries poured soil brought from their homelands into a lotus-shaped urn. The Mother then unveiled the four-point Auroville Charter, the first of which says: “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the divine consciousness.” She wanted a universal town where people would “realise human unity”.

In a way, Auroville resembles a command economy, but Deepti Tewari, a resident of 43 years who teaches there, says there is a difference. Taking off from the leitmotif of the French Revolution, ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’, Tewari reasons that capitalism gives liberty but destroys equality, while communism gives equality but destroys liberty. Fraternity ensures both liberty and equality. Auroville is a ‘fraternity’ where, instead of a top-heavy structure thrusting rules on the people, the entire community decides what it does for itself.

That also includes “an understanding” that nobody shall take a fellow Aurovillian to court; disputes shall be resolved internally. All serve the community, and the community takes care of them all.

Electricity is free — the township consumes around 35 lakh units a year. Schooling is free, and children are encouraged to learn the subjects of their choice at their own pace, and there are no exams. Students who want to go ‘outside’ for higher education will necessarily have to take an open examination elsewhere, and they usually do well in them. Bala Baskar, a former secretary of the Auroville foundation, says his Auroville-schooled son is a successful lawyer today. While the learning methods appear conducive for mathematics, humanities and computer education, it is not so for science education, as the labs are “rudimentary”, Baskar concedes.

Water is not free yet in Auroville, but basic medical facilities are. For more serious cases, two ambulances are on standby to transport the sick to Puducherry hospitals.

The foundation receives funds from different sources, including ‘donations’ paid by those seeking an accommodation, but which they will never own.

However, Auroville was conceived to be fully self-sustaining, driven by its own economy. The success of this economy is the key element of the Auroville experiment.

There are about 150 income-generating units owned by trusts set up by the foundation. These units are meant to generate enough funds for their own sustenance and also contribute (at least a third of their profits) to the foundation — any remainder is ploughed back into business but never goes to individuals. Maroma, which makes a range of handicrafts that are sold in Auroville shops across the country, is one of the larger commercial units. Auroville Bakery is another. Then there are farmlands owned by Auroville which serve the dual purpose of research in sustainable agriculture and water conservation, as also produce crops. A dozen restaurants earn money for the foundation from the 3,000-odd daily visitors.

Perhaps the best example of an Auroville commercial unit that is in complete alignment with the founding spirit, and also appears to be doing well, is Auroville Consulting, which employs 25 professionals. It was co-founded by Toine van Megen, a Dutchman who has been living in the township since the 1970s, speaks fluent Tamil, is married to a Tamilian, and was briefly the CEO of Suzlon Energy. Auroville Consulting provides advice and training in wind and solar energy generation, and sustainable development. It counts entities such as Tamilnadu Energy Development Agency and Tamilnadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation among its clients.

So successful are its training programmes that it now intends to build a ₹35-crore Centre for Green Practices for training services. van Megen is himself active in Indian solar energy policy development and lives in a house that is fully solar-powered.

Another of Auroville’s enterprises is the ‘Buddha Garden’, a farmland that is experimenting with a ‘precision irrigation system’ using sensors and controlled drip-irrigation (somewhat similar to Bosch’s attempt in Karnataka, only cheaper). The first crop (vegetables) cycles saw an 80 per cent drop in water consumption even as some yields doubled.

The economic units contributed ₹9.6 crore — 46 per cent of the township’s ₹21-crore income in 2016-17.

However, much still depends on grants and donations. A ‘utility fund’ received donations totalling ₹60 crore in 2014-15. Without such contributions, the township may not have survived. “Auroville is in its 50th year, but its economy is still not self-sustaining,” says Manuel Thomas, a Chennai-based chartered accountant, who has co-authored a book on Auroville’s economy. He reckons that most of the units remain ‘micro’ in nature. “The main reason is lack of access to capital. Most units start on unit-holders’ funds and small borrowings from friends,” he says.

With the handicrafts unit Maroma losing ground due to falling sales and high overheads, the future may well depend on the success of Auroville Consulting.

The economy is clearly under strain. “There is increasing awareness of the need for a sound economy and there are internal discussions ongoing to address this issue,” admits Thomas, while pointing out that Auroville is still an evolving entity.

The stressed economy is probably one of the reasons why the number of inhabitants has not grown. Auroville was conceived to accommodate 50,000 people — 50 years down the line, there are 2,136 adults and 690 children. The city was planned to be built over 200 sq km, but Auroville owns only 84 sq km till date. Any expansion would call for upfront payment by those wishing to move in.

Frederick, a German who has lived in Auroville since the early 1960s (“unable to come to terms with the barbarity of Nazi Germany”), says there are many waiting to come in. The place has a lure all its own — people who taste the life here, want to stay on. But not everyone is allowed to. There is a process involved. A newcomer initially stays as a volunteer for a fixed period, which used to be three months but is currently two years. This gives both the newcomer and the community time enough to decide whether she or he belongs here or not. Many, like the Austrian Martin Scherfler, who has been here for 12 years, came in for a look and decided to stay on, but some moved away. An ‘entry service group’ clears a person for permanent residence, followed by an approval from the residents’ assembly.

Ultimately, the question is, to what extent has this different model of living been successful. Tewari says that the very fact that Auroville has existed half a century is not just a matter of success but a “miracle”. Toine van Megen prefers to see it a little differently. He believes that if the “real Auroville” is meant to be an instrument of ‘inner development’, as envisaged by the Mother, then there is “still a lot to achieve”.

Both seem to be right because, while Tewari looks at the past, van Megen has his eyes on the future.

At the end of the first 50 years, Auroville is a veritable success. There are hordes of foreigners living in various ashrams in India — including the nearby Aurobindo Ashram, which is connected to Auroville only by the spirit of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings and nothing else.

But these ashrams are primarily religious communes. Aurovillians, in contrast, are hardly religious.

Auroville says that its a community run by volunteers. But even if you stay there for two days, you will notice that all the real work is being done by working class indians. From serving, to housekeeping, to cleaning and so on who are drawing salaries for their service.

A lot of Auroville is really to attract Europeans. And most come loaded. They spend leisure time away from 1st world problems. And really believe/have bought into the life of leisure, and ‘self - sustenance’ in a way.

There are very few ‘índian’ aurovillians. But a lot of employed aurovillians. Which is really questionable.

References:

atlasobscura.com