This letter was sent to the Embassies and Consulates by the Working Committee and other distinguished well-wishers of Auroville, following the different visits and the questions often received.

Excellencies,

Auroville was created as a hope for the world, a living example of what humanity can aspire for and move towards, a place where the signposts for the future would become living examples and where people of the world would communicate greater, conscious freedom, the beauty of its city, its environment, and many-sided realizations.

This universal town has a vision-born city plan, supported by a Charter, both initiated by the Mother. This plan is the basis of Auroville’s master plan for which she invited Roger Anger, whose centenary we also celebrate this year.

As you know, the Crown, which has been in the news, is an important element of the city. It circles through the four zones of the city, unifying it, and preventing it from sprawling, to ensure a pedestrian-friendly, e-mobility plan for this main urban centre of Auroville. Here life, activities, culture, services, plazas, shaded patios, and walking arcades will allow young and old to meet, walk or cycle around the town, protected from sun or rain.

This is what many of us have been waiting for, for nearly 3 decades, since 1993, when Roger Anger wanted to start marking the Crown path. The resistance has been ongoing, amplifying and hardening. Discussions are ridiculed or disrupted and the very concept and need for this city have been diverted to the idea of an eco-village which is amplified across all media and the original city plan has been made dispensable. Professions about not being against the city and the Galaxy plan have never been matched on the ground and people are waiting.

The present crisis only reveals how far a faction has gone and can still go to disrupt and obstruct all attempts to lay this central artery of Auroville’s urban life. These have been splashed across national and international media, in government offices, at UNESCO, and other Auroville international platforms, deliberately ripping apart the goodwill in the community, between well-wishers around the world, obstructing the work, and demonizing all those who support the city.

Explaining the Auroville symbol which closely resembles the city plan, the Mother had stated: the inner circle represents the creation, the conception of the City.

This is the very thing being hindered through force, denial, and false propaganda. The prime target of all this since December 2021 has been Dr Jayanti Ravi, the one woman they have not been able to coerce or intimidate despite the vilest attempts to discredit and caricature her in media like in The Guardian, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and across Indian journals and social media.

The work continues because Auroville must continue and cannot be stopped by the whims and denials of those who refuse to collaborate. The How of it has been flaunted everywhere and needs to be seen in the context of How the years of obstructions and delays by this faction have:

1. Divided the people, misled the youth in particular.
2. Duped authorities including the Governing Board that they were working for the city, for the Crown, and so on.
3. Contradicted the authority of the Standing Order for the TDC that an earlier Chairman set in place by propping up unratified parallel governance to compromise the planning.
4. The same pattern of parallel groups now flourishes, defying directives, with massive media and social campaigns, rampant court cases, alternate servers set up without permission, alternate websites, alternate RAS, alternate News & Notes: an alternate Auroville literally, fracturing all the goodwill and opportunities offered to Auroville. None of the above is in the spirit of Auroville, nor in service to the Divine that we are here to serve, as is claimed.
5. Has put on hold all projects ready to start since the NGT stay order was enforced, which described Auroville as a deemed forest, comfortably denying the city the Mother inaugurated in 1968, with a city plan on which 3 years of work went in.
6. The delays have hiked land and building costs which have skyrocketed over 3 decades.
7. Delays have led to the loss of master plan land over the years, where outside speculators have bought and built without consonance with the planned experiment.
8. Propagated false ‘political’ narratives and dragged Auroville into it.
9. Interfered and attempted to disrupt every aspect and every stage of work. When called to collaborate, as with the Dreamweaver, the parameters on which the collective endeavor was based were not respected, and the result of the workshop was not handed over to ATDC as agreed.
10. Continue to label the functioning ATDC as illegal despite clear High Court orders. Instead, alternate groups flashed all over social media to further confuse people.
11. Brought unnecessary negative attention on Auroville by constantly harping against the Secretary, the Governing Board, and the Government, and those working for Auroville to grow.
12. Torn apart the fabric of Auroville by ostracizing not just adults but children too.

All these things are being done and said in the name of ALL in Auroville, in an unethical attempt to make ALL Aurovilians complicit in this false narrative. The Residents Assembly is not a political party. These antics have only brought unnecessary pressure and attention on Auroville and its affairs, taking away from ALL of us the natural freedom, right to action, and a sincere collaboration in the realization of Auroville that had been envisaged for this experiment.

Auroville is not a political or democratic project, it goes much further than it must if it aims at the transformation of life for the future of humanity. Auroville’s aim, the Mother had said, is to ‘divert the destructive current of the world’ that perpetuates war. Human Unity is a huge responsibility that Auroville must learn to live up to.

The city is the practical means given to fulfill this experiment in all its aspects and must never be blocked.

We will keep you posted on the situation as it evolves so that you are not left with a limited perspective. We are certainly in the middle of a great churning but also at a turning point of a transformation for the future.

We warmly welcome all your questions and suggestions and look forward to your visits to Auroville.

Best regards,
The Working Committee
Anuradha Legrand, Arun S. Joseba Martinez Burdaspar, Parthasarathy Krishnan, Selvaraj Damotharan, Srimoyi Rosegger, and Christine Neuman

Video message #6 to the Auroville Community, India and the world by Dr. Jayanti Ravi, Secretary of the Auroville Foundation – 5 August 2023

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https://aurovillefoundation.org.in

https://aurovillefoundation.org.in/conclave-august-8th-2023/

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