Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Fri 14 Mar 2008 02:00 AM PDT
6 Mar 2008, 0226 hrs IST,Gautam Siddharth,TNN
Forty
years after Auroville was inaugurated by Sri Aurobindo's leading disciple, Mirra
Alfassa, popularly known as Mother, the new-age metropolis designed for 50,000
people today houses just about 3,000 people from 40 countries, with a floating
population of temporary residents and transnational wanderers adding up to not
more than 10,000. So is this the dusk of the 'City of Dawn'? Is Auroville a
1960s' idea whose time is
past?
Member of the governing
board Mallika Sarabhai, associated with Auroville for four years, disagrees. "I
think it's a wonderful idea, even if a bit idealistic. True, Aurovillians have
long way to go, and the world is changing fast. But it's in this fast changing
world that the idealism of Auroville remains very much
relevant."
Says another
resident Claude Arpi, journalist and author, living here for the last 30 years,
"I would say the biggest achievement of Auroville is that the project hasn't
collapsed. The vision behind it is
alive."
But Auroville is not
without its problems. Local sectional interests, nearly all of them villagers in
its periphery, distrust "foreigners". Says Major General (retd) Ashok
Chatterjee, director Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Eductional
Research, "Unfortunately, some of the gram panchayats have gone to anti-socials.
They think just because foreigners live here, they must be rich, and make all
sorts of unreasonable
demands."
Says member of
governing board Ajoy Bagchi, "While there are internal differences of opinion,
Aurovillians know they can't survive without the goodwill of the villagers. So
they have made them an intrinsic part of Mother's project by giving them direct
employment."
Indeed, close to
5,000 men and women from the villages in Auroville work with the different
communities under the Auroville Village Action Group, which disburses around Rs
7 crore annually for their services. And the spiritual dimension is sacrosanct:
The activities of the communities are not supposed to be an end in themselves;
rather, they are a means to take the inner journey towards
self-fruition.
The residents
thank the government, which, they say, has gone beyond their expectations in
supporting Sri Aurobindo's ideals. Despite their occasional differences, at the
end of the day they are all one, united in the thought that brought them
together: That it's possible for people of various nationalities, regions and
races, to live in harmony.
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