Finding Auroville

Uncovering Aurovillage

The main sequence of posts of this blog that are found on the home page are focused on exploring the purpose of Auroville and looking at the future path that Auroville could take from its current situation. While these posts are critical of the current Auroville situation wherever needed, they focus on what Auroville could and should be from a sociological and spiritual perspective.

However there is also a need to analyze, understand and critique more pointedly where Auroville has reached after the 50+ years of its founding, and how it got to where it is. To do this, I am writing another sequence of posts under the category “Uncovering Aurovillage” (it had started off as “Uncovering Auroville” but I changed it), which will be catalogued on this page. These posts will be focused on critiquing where Auroville/Aurovillage finds itself today, and how we got here. For a definition of Aurovillage, go to the second post of this sequence (UA02).

The problems that have been allowed to fester in Auroville over the past decades are the main reason why the Indian government has had to step in and take a more proactive role in the functioning of the project, which it has done since 2020. The set of posts on this page will highlight these problems. Even if the government had not stepped in, it would have been essential to expose these issues so that Auroville could have course-corrected one way or another. These posts will necessarily be very negative of the situation that has been created in Auroville, but I feel that it is an essential task to perform so that people understand what is actually going on in Auroville, and so that Auroville can move in a better direction. Already in Auroville there are a few voices bringing these issues to light, but there is a need for more. Belling the cat is a job that can sometimes be mucky, but someone has to do it!

  • Children of Aurovillage

    Children of Aurovillage

    When discussing the various issues related to the malediction that is Aurovillage, it is important to point out a specific group of people within it, who could be called the Children of Aurovillage. In Auroville there is a special category known as “Children of Auroville”, which includes anyone born and…

  • How Has Aurovillage Been Able/Allowed to Exist for so Long?

    How Has Aurovillage Been Able/Allowed to Exist for so Long?

    In this series of posts that has been uncovering Aurovillage, we have defined what Aurovillage is in relation to Auroville, looked at the history of Aurovillage, differentiated between Aurovillagers and regular Aurovilians, seen how Aurovillagers have used duplicity and manipulativeness to create a convivial facade for Auroville that hides a…

  • Aurovillage as an Emotional and Psychological Sanctuary

    Aurovillage as an Emotional and Psychological Sanctuary

    I had originally wanted to title this post “Aurovillage as a Mental Asylum” because that describes Aurovillage quite appropriately, but mental health is an issue that needs to be taken seriously, and that title was a little too frivolous despite its pertinence. Previous posts in this series have described how…

  • Aurovillagers, Aurovilians and the Dynamics of Power Within Auroville

    Aurovillagers, Aurovilians and the Dynamics of Power Within Auroville

    In the ongoing series of posts titled Uncovering Aurovillage I have been describing Aurovillage, the loose network of Aurovilians who want to maintain Auroville as a small, isolated, insular bubble. Aurovillage has controlled the autonomous administrative structure of Auroville to make sure that it remains a restricted, parochial, nepotistic, colonial…

  • Auroville as a Colonial Enclave: Western Entitlement, White Privilege and Indian Coconuts

    Auroville as a Colonial Enclave: Western Entitlement, White Privilege and Indian Coconuts

    In the ongoing series of posts under the title Uncovering Aurovillage I have been describing the cabal that is Aurovillage – a network of people in Auroville who have worked very hard and have been very successful in making sure that the project of Auroville remains a small, insular, parochial,…

  • A Brief History of Aurovillage

    A Brief History of Aurovillage

    Aurovillage has existed in Auroville for as long as Auroville has existed. It was present at the inauguration ceremony of Auroville on February 28th, 1968. It is in many respects the primary on-site, organized representation of the individual and collective ego inserting itself into a project that is, or should…

  • Duplicity and Lying at the Heart of Aurovillage

    Duplicity and Lying at the Heart of Aurovillage

    In the first post of this series I described a central aspect of Auroville as it has existed over the past few decades, which is that in Auroville a facade has been created for the consumption of outsiders and short-term visitors, and this facade is very different from the reality…

  • Auroville and Aurovillage

    Auroville and Aurovillage

    This post is the second in a series that had started off under the category and title “Uncovering Auroville” but which I’ve renamed/re-categorized as “Uncovering Aurovillage”. This is a better categorization because what I’m endeavoring to uncover with these posts is what is referred to as Aurovillage by some people,…

  • The Packaging of Auroville

    The Packaging of Auroville

    As mentioned in the description on the Uncovering Aurovillage page (which was originally called Uncovering Auroville), the purpose of the posts on this page is to bring to light the structural problems that have accumulated in Auroville over the past 50+ years of its existence. This exposition is a task…