For the earliest followers from across the world who took the plunge in the 1960s to renounce the material path to join the Auroville project of Mirra Alfassa, or The Mother, it would have been their first practical initiation into the Karma Yoga postulate of Sri Aurobindo.
Together, a unique collective of strangers from all over the world, united by their belief in The Mother’s vision of human unity and spiritual growth, went about transforming what was then a barren land to a green habitat.
“It was a project executed from scratch… there were no roads, water or electricity,” says Frederick, an old-timer Aurovilian who reached India (Mumbai) by boat from Germany in 1966.
The Mother wanted Auroville to be a place on earth ‘where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for pleasures and material enjoyments.’
“Two caravans left Paris for India in the sixties”, says Fabien, who is now with Auroville Outreach.
The first came in 1969, the next in 1984 which was after The Mother’s passing.
Insider account
Anuradha Majumdar, who recently published Auroville: A City for the Future (Harper Collins India) gives an insider account of the founding of the City of Dawn and the early struggles.
Born in Allahabad, she discovered Sri Aurobindo while in college in Kolkata and it proved to be a life-changing experience which led her to Auroville in 1979. She has worked in different areas including the Matrimandir construction site and as a dancer-choreographer with the Auroville Dance Lab.
In her book, she explores the question as to whether Auroville resonates with the Mother’s vision 50 years hence, the material and spiritual challenges and what signposts mark it unambiguously as a city for the future.
The book offers a first-hand account by someone “who has lived the adventure for thirty-six years” and it explores not utopia but a living laboratory: a city being forged by many challenges, many experiments and a dream.
Caravan style days
It recounts “the caravan style days” in the early sixties when a city of the future was envisioned as rising from the red earth as a place belonging to none in particular but to humanity as a whole (During the Auroville inauguration in 1968, youth from 124 different nations and 23 Indian states, deposited a handful of their native soil into a marble-clad urn at the amphitheatre adjacent to the Matrimandir).
Ms. Majumdar notes that Auroville came into existence with just two things: a Charter and a City plan, welcoming people from around the world to create a new life beyond national rivalries, social conventions, self-contradictory moralities and contending religions — a project to realise human unity through a change of consciousness.
Charting the journey from those pioneering times, the book interweaves individual stories along with The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s expansive vision, giving readers an insider’s perspective into what is an extraordinary and ever-evolving experiment.
Four Indians
“In that day and age, four Indian personages were an influence in Germany…Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo,” recalls Frederick.
Mr. Frederick first met The Mother at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram here in 1960.
“That changed my life. I resolved to work for her mission,” says Frederic, who returned to India for good in 1966.
“And, The Mother was convinced that the place had to be in India…and she chose the site in Tamil Nadu,” he added.
The Mother’s passing in 1973 was a shattering moment for the Aurovilian community.
Initial problems
“There were initial problems in creating a legal entity to carry forward the Auroville project,” said Mr. Frederick.
It was in 1979 that the Government of India initiated a process to protect and preserve for posterity the universal township.
Years later, the government passed a unique Act in Parliament, the Auroville Foundation Act, 1988, which provided, in the public interest, for the acquisition of all assets and undertakings relatable to Auroville without payment of compensation.
These assets, which till then were managed by an administrator under the Auroville Emergency Provisions Act, were temporarily transferred to the Government of India, with the aim of ultimately vesting them in a body corporate established for the purpose, the Auroville Foundation.
The Auroville Foundation came into existence in January 1991. The assets were vested in the Foundation on April 1, 1992. UNESCO would later pass five resolutions.
“One of the examples we have shown to the world is our collective and consensus-based governance model,” says Mr. Fredrick.
The form of self-governance is something similar to, but which predates the panchayati raj system.
“Auroville follows a self-governance model based on spiritual values,” said Mr. Frederick.
