A sense of existential crisis pervades what should have been a celebratory time in Auroville. It is passing through a special phase of commemorating its founding by Mirra Alfassa, or The Mother, on February 28, 1968, in a year that also coincides with the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of her spiritual mentor Sri Aurobindo.
Nearly five decades since an acrimonious power-ideological feud plunged the township in turmoil in the days following the Mother’s passing in 1973, the community once again stands bitterly divided over the path to the future.
Back then, the crisis would culminate in a government takeover of Auroville in 1980 through the promulgation of the Auroville (Emergency Provisions) Ordinance — it later became the Auroville Foundation Act (1988) — and the subsequent failed challenge in the Supreme Court by Sri Aurobindo Society. And, perhaps the roots of the new crisis may also lie in that denouement which took away from Auroville a critical part of its self-governing autonomy and vested the Union with a larger oversight of the township and its guided growth.
