Auroville’s Working Committee (WCom), recognised by the Auroville Foundation, has alleged that a pressure group within the universal township was violating the fundamental structure of the Auroville Foundation Act through its “defiant and persistent blocking” of work on building the city for the future. In a press statement, the Wcom said the group’s constant defiance of the Act, the provisions of which also applied to the Auroville Foundation, had created a new situation that warranted reflection on the way forward as it was “never expected that Aurovilians would act against Auroville”. Accusing the group of “anti-city and environmental hard-liners” of spreading misinformation and manufacturing controversy to vilify those who support the long-pending goal of building a city for 50,000 volunteers from all over the world, the press note said: “Those who speak in the support of the city have faced personal boycott, had their activities and exhibitions shunned or, have faced public discrimination and ridicule in the name of harmony and unity”. Whether it was the Crown project, stalled since 1986, or laying of HT cables to complete the underground electrical infrastructure ring, the group had been resorting to aggressive tactics to block any work, violating previous agreements and defying the governing board, the press note claimed. “A master plan agreed upon and approved cannot change into a forest at the whims of some, altering the very direction of Auroville, or be challenged each time work gets ready to start”, WCom said. On the controversy over the adherence to the Crown’s perfect circle, the press note stated that the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo was based on perfection, both at the material and spiritual levels. “The building of Matrimandir reflected this aspiration for perfection, in accordance with its design. It follows, that the next key element of the city plan, the Crown, echoes the same aspiration and respects the plan design. Instead, trees have been weaponised, and planted deliberately, as an extreme means to block the path and Auroville”, the WCom claimed. On the narrative that Auroville was being turned into a political project of the ruling dispensation at the Centre, the press note said that Auroville’s close association with various governments predated the country’s recent political history and that the city project of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother was in the works as early as the 1930s. Citing several observations of The Mother herself, Kireet Joshi, a former chairman of the governing board and a key architect of the Auroville Foundation Act, 1988, and other records, the Wcom said true self governance in Auroville meant “soul governance” and be in service of the sole authority governing the township which was the truth. As Mr. Joshi once put it, “...the only limitation on the freedom of the people of Auroville is that they cannot try to develop Auroville against the Charter of Auroville”, the WCom press note said.
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