How Auroville Is Governed
Between vision and law, spirit and structure
Introducing the foundations, bodies, and systems that hold the City
Auroville is not governed like a conventional city, nor can it survive on idealism alone. It exists at a complex intersection of spiritual aspiration, collective self-organisation, and statutory responsibility. To function, it must hold both the inner intent of its founders and the outer frameworks that enable continuity, accountability, and protection of the experiment.
Governance in Auroville is therefore not merely administrative. It is an ongoing effort to translate the Mother’s vision into workable systems — without reducing it to bureaucracy, and without dissolving it into informality. Understanding how Auroville is governed means understanding this tension: between freedom and responsibility, autonomy and oversight, collective will and legal mandate.
This page offers clarity on the structures that hold Auroville today — not as ideology, but as lived reality.
Letter and Spirit — the Act, RA, GB, IAC
Auroville’s governance rests on a legal foundation established by the Auroville Foundation Act (1988), which brought the township under a statutory framework to safeguard its land, assets, and purpose. The Act defines key bodies — the Residents’ Assembly (RA), Governing Board (GB), and International Advisory Council (IAC) — each with distinct roles and responsibilities.
The letter of governance lies in these structures, rules, and procedures. The spirit lies in how they are exercised: with integrity, transparency, and alignment to Auroville’s founding ideals. Tension arises when one is emphasized at the cost of the other.
Healthy governance requires both — lawful structure and conscious intent — held together without distortion.
The Auroville Master Plan
The Master Plan is the physical expression of Auroville’s vision — a long-term blueprint for a city designed to embody human unity, ecological responsibility, and conscious living. Based on the Galaxy Plan approved by the Mother, it outlines zones, green belts, mobility systems, and spatial relationships meant to support inner and outer harmony.
The plan is not static. It unfolds over decades, requiring land consolidation, coordination, and collective discipline. Conflict often arises not from the plan itself, but from resistance to its implications.
Understanding the Master Plan is essential to understanding Auroville’s future — because the city is not only an idea to be preserved, but a form to be built.
Auroville Demystified — Practical Aspects of Life
Beyond ideals and institutions, Auroville functions through everyday systems: housing, work, finances, services, participation, and decision-making. These practical realities often remain opaque to outsiders — and sometimes even to residents.
This section clarifies how Auroville actually works on the ground: who does what, how decisions move, how resources are managed, and how individuals participate responsibly in collective life. It addresses common misconceptions and replaces hearsay with context.
Demystification is not reduction. It is a necessary step toward informed participation, mature dialogue, and realistic engagement with the experiment as it truly exists.
