A very odd thing happened in Auroville on Saturday two weeks back (April 1st, 2023). One of the illegal groups gave a presentation. About “the way forward”.
It was the most peculiar thing, as the group in question are the Aurovillagers that are illegally usurping the name of “TDC”, the Auroville Town Development Council. The fact that they are illegal is shown in court by the dismissal of the Writ Petition filed by Natasha Storey against the appointment of the present ATDC members (the real ones of course).
I have not written about all the legal stuff that happened over the past months. First of all because it has been rather quiet, with the appeal in the Supreme Court against the NGT verdict pending, and secondly, with the appeal against the Madras High Court single judge verdict of August 12th, 2022 also pending.
But two very important wins happened, which were both not much publicised by the Aurovillagers on their Stand for Auroville Unity platform. For obvious reasons: their propaganda campaign will collapse if they have to tell the truth of their failure to prove their false claims. On top of that, they have screamed their victories so ridiculously loud when the verdicts of the NGT and the Madras High Court single judge were given, but neither has brought them any benefit on the ground.
Let me quickly fill you in on the two wins.
1. On October 13th, 2022, the Madras High Court dismissed Natasha's Writ Petition as baseless, and upheld the legal appointment of the present ATDC team. Which obviously means that there is no other team that has any legal standing: the Auroville Foundation can only have one single Town Development Council, and such a body can only be created legally by the Governing Board.
The Aurovillagers have first kept very quiet about this loss. Ridiculously enough, they tried to pretend it hadn't happened at first:
Madras High Court, ATDC Office Order – The petition challenging the Office Order appointing members to the ATDC was heard in court on Thursday 13th October. Following this hearing, several interpretations and hearsay have been floating around. However, the court order (the official document detailing the outcome) has not been posted online yet, and all interpretations that are circulating may be inaccurate. The case will be explained further in more detail.
That is after their lawyers knew for a fact that the WP had been dismissed. The fact that the ruling had not been published yet is of course only a formality: the outcome was totally clear at that hearing. As with everything, they try to convince the world that in their delusion bubble, things can still completely change. Normality is not a part of that bubble, so you never know, do you now?
Until today, they refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that the legality of the ATDC is proven in court, on their own request nota bene, and they keep calling this group “illegally appointed”. That fact in itself should make every honest and truth-seeking person think twice about what comes out of this propaganda campaign. They equally do not acknowledge that the ruling implies that their fake group is nothing more than that: a group of fake people illegally pretending to be something they are not. They obviously also have no power whatsoever to implement any action relating to the Auroville Town Development, in stark contrast to the real ATDC, which is continuing to implement the Galaxy plan and is constructing the Crown road through the CPWD (Central Public Works Department).
2. On December 19th, 2022, the Madras High Court dismissed Namrita Gautier's Writ Petition that claimed that the FAMC members are illegally appointed by the Governing Board. The dismissal was the result of the fact that Namrita (or better: her handlers) withdrew the case to avoid a more shameful dismissal with a ruling that would make minced meat of her over-emotional “arguments”. Don't take my word for it, read it for yourself if you manage. It's an endless repetition of emotional lamentations with as good as no legal content. That's not difficult: everybody can read the legal documents in which the Governing Board creates the FAMC. There is also a legal document that stipulates that whatever any committee created by the Governing Board does or who is part of it, is totally at the discretion of the Governing Board. There are no conditions whatsoever, the Governing Board is totally free to create or annul these bodies according to its own wishes, and can do with them as they please. Namrita's case against the FAMC was therefore doomed to fail, and seems filed in a desperate, hyper-emotional state of mind, probably to find comfort in the idea that something was being done. After a few hearings, it was clear that they were going to do much more damage than good with this case, and so they withdrew it.
After this debacle, the exact same thing happened on the Aurovillage side: total radio silence about the withdrawal, and a complete absurd spin when our public statements pushed them to give some kind of a reaction. They claim that the case was withdrawn in order to submit it again in a stronger form. This is a total lie, as “Namrita”'s lawyers were told clearly that the court would not allow them to resubmit the case if they withdrew it. After all, the judicial system is not a casino where you can keep putting fresh money on your favourite number until, after dozens of losses, it finally wins. The courts are not meant to be a playground for delusional beings who just want to bet on the fact that one day they'll get a judge they can buy or for whatever other reason gives them their wish, in spite of all legal evidence.
As with the TDC case, here also there is of course zero acknowledgement of any legal conclusions that have to be drawn. In spite of all the legal documents and their sudden interest and self-acclaimed expertise in all matters legal, they keep writing about “illegally appointed” or “AVFO-appointed” FAMC members. As there is simply no other legal “FAMC” body possible, these denominations are meaningless, and serve no other interest than to influence what people think by sticking to their falsehoods. And once again, they claim that their group has any relevance, even though everybody who is only slightly interested in knowing what happens in Auroville can see that the Aurovillagers claiming to be the “FAMC” have exactly zero power to implement anything relating to Auroville's funds and assets. Of course they can fundraise around the world for an alternative budget, and give that money to their loyal cult members who “spread the word” with religious zeal. But this is totally unrelated to Auroville, as is the “RA-TDC” building an alternative Crown in the Metaverse. In short: it's all wind and nothing tangible.
There's also an appeal in the NGT, filed by Navroz Modi and Sandeep Vinod Gopalan who claim that the report of the Joint Commission (see episode 46) has to be declared invalid and done all over, and that in the meantime the court has to forbid all works on the Crown with a Stay Order. On March 14th, shortly after the Darkali clearing, a hearing on this appeal took place. The appeal had been filed in February, on the day that a pooja was held in Darkali in advance of the clearing work. This pooja was assisted by many Indian and international dignitaries, including Dena Merriam, chairwoman of the International Advisory Council (an official body of the Auroville Foundation).
In the hearing of March 14th, both the requests of the appeal were dismissed: there was no Stay Order given, and the JC report was not invalidated. If you ask for two things, and you receive neither, this would be considered a defeat anywhere in the world. Not so in Aurovillage: it was a victory, apparently! This is how the SfAU website spins their loss:
The main points are:
• The Miscellaneous Application (MA) [the appeal of Navroz and Sandeep] asked the NGT to give a stay/interim relief on tree cutting on the Crown because the Joint Committee (JC) didn’t inspect and survey the whole Crown area and therefore their report was incomplete.
• Although the original order allowed Crown Road work to continue without cutting any trees or in areas where there are no trees, the NGT acknowledged the concern of the 2 residents that trees are being cut outside the Crown Road areas and beyond the recommendation of the Joint Committee of the NGT.
• It was officially put on record by the NGT that a lawyer for the Auroville Foundation (represented by the Secretary) stated that no work would happen in violation of the Joint Committee’s report.
• In summary, in this first hearing the NGT has clearly reminded the AVFO to respect the original ruling and the existing Joint Committee report, so only the marked and listed trees within the designated 9.1m in Darkali can be cut.
• A next hearing is scheduled for the 5th of April to decide whether or not to reconvene the Joint Committee and order them to complete the survey of trees and water bodies on the planned Crown trajectory.
We are grateful to the Hon’ble NGT for what seems to us to be a fair order and we trust this will continue.
Nobody in the Foundation Office or the ATDC or the CPWD has ever had the intention not to follow the JC report. In fact, it was considered to be a very positive compromise, as it only slightly reduces the width of the Crown in this area (where it mainly crosses through the Mahasaraswati Park), and as it dismissed the nonsensical claims that this area is ecologically valuable and has “special water catchment bodies”. The Foundation, the Secretary nor the TDC had ever the intention to not respect this report. So of course the lawyers of the Foundation were happy to assure that it would be respected: it is exactly the Aurovillage faction that wants to shred it and have the JC sent back to the drawing board! That clearly did not happen. The final decision on this appeal is pending, but it's clear that once again they lost their bet to get another stay order – which is their wet dream with all these court cases, as I explained many times: freezing the past is what they want most.
Let's now get back to that weird “presentation” that the imposters held on Saturday. Given all the above, it should be quite clear by now that these people hold absolutely no power whatsoever in Auroville anymore. That's what the whole legal battle is for: to get legal power back. So far they failed miserably.
So what are these people busy with in these fake, irrelevant “groups”? What kind of plan will they present to the community? You can look at the presentation yourself, it was live-streamed and is available online: https://www.youtube.com/live/WwY-9M1nhJM.
The first thing that one can notice is the audience. Much less than before, and still at least 90% Western. It's more difficult to see in the dark, but there cannot have been more than 150 persons, and yes, as always, the vast majority are foreigners.
The presentation itself was the strangest thing. Trying with all their might to avoid the very blatant fact that these people will not be able to realise any project in the material reality of Auroville, they talk about “processes” – just as they did for the past 50 years. Everything has always been about talking about how we might one day do something, and never about actually doing something. And then they had a live-streamed online communication with Rajeev of the Vastu Shilpa company, which a year ago had been in the picture to create the DDPs (Detailed Development Plans) for Auroville. This contract was never signed as there was no agreement reached on the exact (financial) terms.
This company does not do much pro-bono work. Some Auroville architects, mainly on the rebellious side, had and clearly still have close ties to the company, but even so: are these people going to pay hefty sums of real money for DDPs that will only be implemented in a virtual reality? What is going on here? Who was this show for? What was the aim of this charade? What's the purpose of a meeting about things that everybody present knows will never get realised? Are they all really that far gone that they actually believe that “one day” they will have power over Auroville again?
I've come to the conclusion that yes, they actually believe this. They simply cannot do otherwise: their whole life has become meaningless, because the kingdoms they have built over decades are being dismantled, the project they hijacked is taken back, and the power they wielded is simply gone. It's too harsh a reality to accept. They have to remain in denial of reality, and pretend that by some political magic, this is all going to be reversed and undone.
My assessment of this situation is that they believe, religiously, that if they pay enough money, smooch up with the right people, have a Soros-funded “colour revolution” and pray hard enough, the Modi government will lose in the next elections (2024, just around the corner) – and then their friends in the Congress will be in power again. Once that happens, then will also come the moment of their Great Revenge, the Ultimate Vindication, in which the present Governing Board is quickly replaced by – by whom exactly? Because a return of their old friend and benefactor is not physically possible. Anyway, surely there will be some other person who as chairman will make sure that the Governing Board, in spite of what is written in the Foundation Act, will do nothing and hand over all of the decision power of Auroville to the “RA”, no? Not to the legal “Residents' Assembly”, no no, to the self-selected “RA”, the people who are now screaming and shouting, crying “foul”, and who in the past decades decided what Auroville was or was not. The ones who concluded that less Aurovilians means more individual benefits, that “Auroville belongs to the Aurovilians”, that nobody in the world except them has any right to say or decide anything about Auroville. The ones that are rushing to the courts to get legal confirmation of their god-given right over all things Auroville. The ones who keep the charade of their self-proclaimed “legal” functioning going. The ones who make presentations like you see in this video.
So the only reason why they are doing these meaningless presentations of useless groups, produce these reports and publications, is nothing else than keeping their fake “reality” going until the effective REAL reality magically aligns with it again: then they will somehow neatly sow the delusion and the material reality together again, and be able to live on as if nothing ever happened and the past years of change were just a bad dream.
I suppose that calling this a recipe for mental disaster is not exaggerated.
Being a loyal and dependent member of a cult that is disintegrating is not a pleasant experience I guess.
