And here we are again: back with a brand-new episode of your favourite virtual reality show! I swear, you cannot make this up. By now, the whole Aurovillage saga has turned into an entertaining comedy production, with the added bonus that we actually score some educational points while watching and laughing: we get psychological insight into the minds of delusional people.
What happened this time? Well, there was a new RAM held, discussing RADs! A “RAM” is Aurovillage-speak for “Residents' Assembly Meeting”, and “RAD” is “Residents' Assembly Decision”.
You see, Aurovillage is built upon the concept of the “RA”, the Residents' Assembly. The fun of the Aurovillage show starts immediately, with this very central concept, which they themselves are not able to clearly define. Because there is a legal definition, given in the legal text that invented the concept: the Auroville Foundation Act.
Yea, I know, it's sounds like a bummer: the central concept of Aurovillage was not invented by the Aurovillagers themselves. But don't zap away too soon: a lot of the fun and comedy of this show derives exactly from the fact that the protagonists get lost in the meaning of their own concepts and constructs. Their whole world, their reality, their universe, is one huge contradiction, and cognitive dissonance (pretending that flagrant contradictions are totally logically aligned and do not contradict at all) is the blood that runs through their veins.
In this latest instalment of the series, the Aurovillagers gave a kind of Teletubbies-display of how their cognitive dissonance prevents them from actually giving the most logical and rational comments on the totally absurd explanation of what the “RA” is, how they claim to be this “RA” and how they make it “work”.
You see, the difficulty is that they took the concept of the Residents' Assembly out of the Auroville Foundation Act, but then gave it a meaning and interpretation that is totally contradictory to the Auroville Foundation Act. In spite of this, they still claim that that contradiction does not exist, and that their interpretation is totally in alignment with the Auroville Foundation Act. While obviously, and quite grotesquely, it clashes astronomically, and cannot possibly, in the framework of the Auroville Foundation Act, do what they want it to do. So instead of giving up on their totally convoluted and even corrupted interpretation, and accepting the reality of what the “RA” actually is and was created for in and by the Auroville Foundation Act, they just pretend that everybody who points out the complete absurdity of this all, is an idiot and has to be ignored. Because in their heads, there is no contradiction. Where there is no logic, there cannot be a logical contradiction, right? Problem solved! Welcome to Aurovillage and the world of self-delusion!
Just as with the “TDC” episode three months ago (see blog episode 47), it's honestly really hard to describe what was actually on display here. It's almost like a delusion within a delusion, it becomes all so totally disconnected from reality and so grossly contradictory, that I wonder how people look at this, and how they try to make sense of it. Really, it is an incredible charade of nonsense, and if for anybody it makes sense, then there are only two options: either they live within this delusion and have cognitive dissonance for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or they have not the least bit of understanding of Auroville, rationality or logic.
How to unpack what was going on here?
First of all: it was a meeting to decide about how to move forward with two decisions. The two decisions were
allow 300 “residents” to call for an “emergency RAD”
give the group of seven people which is being called “the working committee of the RA” “emergency powers” to nominate members to other working groups
So the meeting was called to decide on how to go forward with deciding. That's already a feat in itself. But then there is the over-arching reality that these people have no legal or real power to decide anything about Auroville. Which may explain why they revert to decisions about how to take decisions.
The reality is, in effect, that these people have lost all the power they imagined they had. They had been allowed for most of their lives to actually live as if they had that power, but that situation ended two years ago, and now they're in denial of reality. The shock was too big and too sudden, even though anybody with the least bit of sense of reality saw it coming from miles away, already years ago.
So the huge elephant in the room during this whole “meeting” was the fact that everybody knows that all this deciding about decisions is effectively occupational therapy, as no matter what they decide on how they will decide when to decide that they decide something, in real life, in the material world, they won't decide anything at all. They can individually take decisions about their lives (which in the state and situation they are in can only be highly recommended), but they most certainly won't decide anything about Auroville. Because they have decided – collectively or individually – to live outside of Auroville's material reality and only in their self-created Aurovillage virtual reality.
Now, within this set-up of having no power whatsoever to make the least bit of air movement in the physical reality of Auroville, they themselves hinted to this very fact, albeit on the fringe and completely left up in the air, and not having the reality actually spelled out.
They then discussed delusions within this delusion, and touched upon the fact that they actually abuse the very concept of the “RA”.
Obviously, they did not touch any solid ground in the end, as that would have felt like a complete plane-crash with probably some very serious casualties. No, they just mention things, pretend that there's no contradiction, nothing to see here, and then move on, as if the elephant did not pass and trumpet them in the face.
At the start of the show, there was this weird, very old-fashioned, immensely clumsy-which-you-are-supposed-to-find-charming-and-endearing “visualisation” of what the process of decision-making in the City of the Future actually is.
Now don't let the extreme amateurism of what we see in the video fool you into overlooking the global importance of what is being presented: there are court cases in India's High Court to defend this as THE way forward for humanity, I kid you not! What we are seeing here is the revolutionary, unprecedented, extremely unique and valuable “community process” that Auroville is world-famous for (in the Aurovillage delusion bubble), and which is under threat of extinction by the actions of the new Governing Board! The threat is so real and big, that actual, true, real, material court cases are filed over it.
The confusing introduction to the future of city-council functioning was done with the help of ice cream pots and an orange, in a way that reminds eerily of the most famous street-performance conman trick: the "shell game", where a ball is hidden under cups, the cups are mixed up, and through sleight-of-hand the ball ends up under a completely different cup than where it had been put originally. I wonder whether we were intentionally pushed to make that comparison and feel like we were being tricked into being duped.
The clown-show then continued with the shocking reveal that this was the first time in the history of the universe that no less than two “RADs” would be going on in parallel. Surprisingly, nobody in the audience seems to have fainted upon taking cognition of this earth-shattering news, but then again, we didn't see much of the audience at all, as the turn-out was a total flop and there were, at the peak of the performance, only around a hundred people present, including all the organisers, presenters, helpers and the stage and camera crew.
Still, the few audience-shots made it once more very clear that the Aurovillage cult is populated with white and mainly ageing people – as was noted at the beginning of the rebellion in December 2021.
The “meat” of the meeting consisted of discussions about the two emergency “RADs” mentioned above, both drafted, proposed and introduced by no lesser person than Renu herself. As one of the more mentally challenged leaders of the Aurovillage cult, she's a bit of a loose cannon, even though she now presents herself as a sweet grandma figure. The proposals leave no room for any doubt: “power to me, the people of the city-state of Auroville” is the message, and it turned out to be a sort of one-woman-show, with no members of the virtual working groups present to support her.
I know that by now, the level of illusory claims in Auroville is difficult to grasp for anyone outside of this virtual reality, but we're here inside the Auroville delusion bubble, and even within this bubble, the virtual working group members somehow didn't want to help her with this deeper level of imaginary power-grabbing.
As touched upon last time already, the people in this virtual reality live in the religious belief that one day, their mythical superhero Saviour Judge will come and rescue them, using magic justice dust to tie their virtual reality up to the real, material reality, which then either replaces the material reality we live in with the virtual reality they live in, or brutally ends the existence of the material universe and makes the virtual Aurovillage universe the only remaining reality which will suck all of us up into it.
No, seriously.
Feel free to read that again a few times. And then muster up all of your statistical know-how and put a figure on how likely you think this outcome is.
So we are witnessing here a revolutionary decision making process that the whole world needs to admire and start copying, and Grumpy Grandma is explaining why emergency decisions need to be allowed to be initiated by 300 residents instead of the Working Committee. Which Working Committee she refers to remains completely unclear until the very end and beyond, because according to the Aurovillagers, there are two Working Committees: a real one and a virtual one. The real one has real powers in the material world, the virtual one has virtual powers in the virtual world, and has at least one member who has been kicked out of the real-world India and is thus not even an Aurovilian anymore. But obviously, that doesn't matter in the virtual reality of Aurovillage, as it is a virtual group which can therefore have virtual members.
Back to what we witness in the gathering. (Did this even really happen, or was it a virtual meeting? It's hardly possible to not lose track of which level of reality we're on here, keeping up with Inception was child's play compared to this.)
Let me try to make this clear (it's actually impossible, but well, I can always try): Grumpma was extremely not-pleased with the fact that the “properly selected” (according to Aurovillage processes like the one visualised by the charming conwoman with the orange and the ice cream cups) members of the Working Committee committed the unspeakable crime and tore the fabric of the universe by actually agreeing and cooperating with the newly appointed Secretary and Governing Board when they arrived on the scene. In the discussion that ensues, we notice that this is a very bitter grievance for many of the Aurovillagers, they repeat quite a few times that the “wrong” persons had been chosen, because – oh sacrilege! – they all allegedly “turned against their own”, because they decided that there was not only merit in what the Secretary and Governing Board are doing, but that the most intelligent and rational thing to do is to help them do it and get this inevitable clean-up over and done with. How exactly it should have been visible or clear before these events happened that these people would become “traitors” is not explained. People like yours truly were quite easy to predict, but many others not, and so it seems that now, only the most outspoken, die-hard, loyal, faithful, ready-to-commit-crimes-to-prove-it cult members will be appointed to positions of virtual power.
Because don't forget we're not in the real world here: this is all about virtual power in the virtual reality of the Aurovillage delusion bubble.
But virtual or not, the extremism is clearly palpable, and it is becoming very hard to keep out associations with quite unpleasant real instances of blindly faithful “command is command” executioners.
Once Grumpma has outlined the radical idea of the new proposal, the floor is opened for comments and discussions, and we land immediately in the near-quantum quagmire of the virtual options within the virtual reality. First there is the worry – no doubt influenced by an over-consumption of Hollywood and Disney – that the evil Secretary might consider leaving her material reality and joining the Aurovillagers in their virtual delusion bubble, and actually muster up 300 virtual Secretary Soldiers to start an emergency RAD! Imagine the horror – oh wait, we don't have to, Disney did this in Enchanted and so we know what that looks like and where the idea comes from. Anyway, in the Aurovillage virtual reality, such things obviously are not fictional, but a real threat, and luckily Grumpma reassures us that democracy will slay the vile Secretary-turned-dragon by voting her out of the Aurovillage bubble and back into her material reality where she belongs. (And where she no doubt feels quite OK with her real, material authority over decisions in Auroville, given by the Auroville Foundation Act, which mentions nothing about “RADs” or voting whatsoever.)
The doubts about the solid nature of this virtual reality didn't stop there though. Wasn't there something in the court cases about an “RoR” and “no RADs until the RoR was updated”?
This unexpected bout of dimension-piercing honesty, coming from someone who isn't even on the mysterious “RoR”, teleports the discussion to an altogether different corner of Aurovillage-world, where we shortly stay to pretend that the information discussed here is coherent with all information discussed elsewhere, instead of simply completely invalidating everything else.
To understand the level of cognitive dissonance we visit here, let me clarify what actually happened in the real world.
On May 6th, 2022, Dr. Seetharaman, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of the Auroville Foundation, published a letter to the Working Committee, and through them to all Aurovilians, stating that, since the Register of Residents (RoR) had not been updated since 2005, there was no clarity on who all was part of the Residents' Assembly, and hence all decisions of the Residents' Assembly would be invalid until the RoR was duly updated. (See episode 36, which deals with this issue.)
The Register of Residents was legally created and defined in the Auroville Foundation Act (if you have not read it yet, please do so here). It is the list of all the Aurovilians (children under 18 years cannot be listed as Aurovilians, as living in Auroville has to be a conscious choice). It is held and updated by the Secretary, and all the persons on this list together constitute the Residents' Assembly.
If the Register of Residents is not kept up-to-date, then obviously there is no clarity on who all is part of the Residents' Assembly, and then decisions taken by people who may or may not be part of the Residents' Assembly cannot be valid.
All this leaving open the question of what kind of decisions the Residents' Assembly should be taking, but that's an issue dealt with in other episodes.
Still in the real world: shortly after the publication of this letter, the Aurovillagers filed a Writ Petition (WP, a specific form of court case) against it in the Madras High Court, claiming it was not valid and that Dr. Seetharaman had no right to make such decrees etc.
On August 12th, 2022, the Hon'ble Justice Mr. Abdul Quddhose gave his verdict in this case, which had been clubbed together with two other WPs filed by the Aurovillagers against certain decisions of the Auroville Foundation office. In this verdict, the Aurovillagers are vindicated on certain points (including that the letter of the OSD was not legally acceptable), but it agrees that the update of the RoR is urgently needed, and that without it, no decisions from either side which touch upon policies can be valid. There's loads that can be said about this verdict, and most of that was said in episode 41, so please read that blogpost if you want to know more about it.
The Auroville Foundation appealed this verdict and on August 26th, 2022, the Appeal Bench issued a Stay Order on the verdict, actually annulling it until a verdict on the appeal is given.
In reality, this means that the condition that the RoR needs to be updated correctly in order for RADs on policies to be valid, as ordered by Justice Quddhose, is no longer a legal demand. However, it also means that the “quashing” of the letter of May 6th, 2022 is also undone, and hence, that this letter has legal validity. And this letter invalidates all RADs until the RoR is fully updated!
This crucial last point is completely absent from the discussion in the meeting, as it obviously would be too much real reality for the virtual reality's fabric to remain intact: admitting this fact would be so illusion-shattering that the whole fake world in which this meeting took place would collapse onto itself and end all proceedings then and there.
So the whole discussion about this verdict and the Stay Order on it floats in a bubble of surreality, giving bits and pieces of correct information but not enough to disrupt the illusion.
Another extremely interesting part mixes up information about the RoR and another list of residents, the “Master List”. The latter is probably the first virtual item ever created by the Aurovillagers: a non-legal Aurovillage copy of the RoR, in which the Aurovillagers add or remove whoever they feel should be part of Auroville, regardless of the fact that the legal authority over and responsibility for this list lies only with the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation. Here comes the crux of impossible thinking, made possible in the Aurovillage virtual reality:
the "Register of Residents" is a legal document kept by the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation,
and the “Residents' Assembly” is legally defined as “all persons on the Register of Residents”,
but is in the Aurovillage virtual reality mainly the cult leaders – the faction of the Aurovilians that has grabbed the power early on, decides everything and bullies out everybody who does not agree with them or with this situation – and their loyal following,
who created a virtual, non-legal copy of the Register of Residents which they called “the Master List” and in which they could make all the changes they wanted,
and this group decided one day, without any process, that they will redefine the Residents' Assembly as “all persons on the Master List”.
The Residents' Assembly obviously has no legal power to redefine itself, let alone to redefine itself outside of the Auroville Foundation Act, and change their status from “residents” to “masters”.
The absurdity, the legal impossibility of all this (it is acknowledged in the meeting that the “Master List” is not a legal document) escapes the vast majority of the cult members, and that is why we get these completely absurd situations in which people who feature on the Master List but not on the RoR scream together “WE ARE THE FOUNDATION!!”. It is not only cognitive dissonance on display, it is also enormous ignorance, to say it politely, splashed all over a sky-wide canvas and exposed proudly to the whole world. It really is staggering how someone can be so oblivious to their own, self-inflicted disgrace.
It's noteworthy that after having been one of the front-runners in the fight against the Sri Aurobindo Society, which resulted in the passing of the Auroville Foundation Act, our dear “elder” Fred, has now, after 35 years, finally grasped that there is a difference between the RoR and the Master List.
If you now thought we had reached the depth of the insanity here, you would be forgiven, but still be mistaken, and be underestimating the vigour with which the Aurovillagers are capable of reaching new and unforeseen levels of being delusional.
While RAD 1 was all about making sure that a treacherous Working Committee would not be the only one with the virtual power to call for “emergency RADs”, RAD 2 is about the total opposite: give the suddenly superhero-like virtual working committee authoritarian powers to decide all by themselves who will be a member of which virtual working group, bypassing all of the revolutionary “selection processes”, which were Aurovillage's gift to humanity in the first place.
This very strange contradiction could obviously have arisen from the fact that the two decisions were pushed by warring or opposing factions within the Aurovillage cult. But no, this second RAD was created and proposed by our same old Grumpma Renu again, who inhales cognitive dissonance with every bidi she smokes. Contradictory statements? Where? Not in Grumpma's brain soup! There, everything is cool and hot, appears and disappears in the thick of the steaming broth, and only what happens to be on the surface at any given moment in time is what matters.
So here we go: let's give the persons Grumpma worships as the leaders of the rebellion dictatorial powers, because these working committee members are the good ones, they won't turn-coat like some despised lesser beings that should never have been allowed on the Master Race List in the first place. She actually names them several times, so we don't make a mistake in who is leading this rebellion against the officers appointed by the Government of India to clean up the Aurovillage mess: Aravindadada, Bharathy (now against Bharat), Chali (pronounced “sh” as in shallow, although Chalo Chali would be quite appropriate), Hemant Lambada, Maëlstrom (or his ghost or something), Sauro (no ring and no power so no -n) and Valli (of the brain-dead). As mentioned before: none of these people attended the meeting.
These are the valiant virtual warriors on whose shoulders Grumpma wants to place the fate of Aurovillage's virtual world, to be ready and prepared and given the needed weapons for when Saviour Judge appears out of the mists of the mythical realms of the Aurovillage Valhalla, holding high, for all to see, the Aurovillage Vindication Act. And replacing reality with unreality. Somehow.
In her defence of this urgent need (not the Ultimate Vindication but the need to give virtual emergency powers to the virtual working committee members), Grumpma makes an astonishing admission: the present selection process is somehow a “long and frustrating collective process”.
Whack. That hurts. The core elements of the Aurovillage cult, namely the “established community processes”, so indescribably unique and special, avant-garde and exemplary for humanity as a whole, turn out to just be “long and frustrating”. That's probably because they are “collective”? So now Aurovillage has reached the stage where such things can no longer be tolerated, and where quick, decisive action needs to be possible to “respond to the need of the moment”. Is Aurovillage on the brink of democratically choosing to no longer be a democracy? Is authoritarianism being embraced by the so peaceful loving harmonious united ground-breaking ahead-of-the-curve Aurovillage “community”?? Stay tuned to find out!!
What follows is truly something to behold. Grumpma goes on to explain or list the details of the conditions on which these virtual “emergency powers” will be given to the seven persons listed above – whether in Auroville or even legally part of Auroville or not. The claimed legalities are a complete mess (we'll come back to that) but that of course is hardly relevant, as we're already in a virtual delusion bubble to begin with. But the fear-based bubble wants to have some “assurances”, and therefore
the emergency powers will only be for six months
but can be extended if the dictators themselves feel that it is needed (I bet there is no chance of them feeling that need, right?), or if 300 cult members feel that it is needed
but will be suspended if, due to some undefined change in virtual reality, these particular seven people are no longer all there and might no longer have a majority (imagine these imaginary emergency powers falling into the wrong hands!)
if 100 cult members feel that one of the virtual members of the virtual groups chosen by the virtual working committee through its virtual emergency powers is “a real [not virtual] pain in the ass”, then the virtual appointment of that virtual member is virtually cancelled (because, as you may remember, people can become “turn-coats” and go over to the dark side, and then we're screwed!)
if 300 cult members want this whole dictatorship to end, then they can request so
Funnily enough, Grumpma lists all of the virtual groups that the virtual dictators can appoint their virtual friends and family to, but one of these groups is a real one, and there is not yet a virtual counterpart: the Land Board. Almost a year ago, Renu herself and another Aurovillager were simply removed from the Land Board by the Foundation Office, from one day to the next, and that was the end of that. Because the Foundation Office has the power to do so, and Grumpma and her Aurovillage cult don't.
So I'm very keen now to see how the virtual emergency powers are going to let the virtual members of the virtual working committee appoint or remove any of the real members of the real Land Board.
Once again, it is obvious that this all is just “keeping the alternative timeline going” in order for Saviour Judge to be able to tie it up perfectly with the end of the existing reality. If this all reminds you of the Jehova's witnesses and such “doomsday end-time, make sure you are with the select group of souls-who-will-be-saved” narratives, that's because this is exactly the mindset we are in. These people have had a short-lived moment of being allowed to rule supreme, and cannot accept that it is now over and that they have to go back to real life in which they are Napoleon no more: it's a rough awakening, and the people in the video have decided they can't stomach it, and want to keep living in the fantasy at all costs – even if it costs them their sanity.
In the introduction to this virtual emergency power “RAD 2” idiocy, Renu announces that “the RA working committee will also have the power to constitute new groups as needed, example: an Exit Committee. Because those are part of our obligations as the residents: we're supposed to formulate the Master Plan, we are supposed to deal with entry, and we are supposed to deal with exit: there are certain powers that we have, that are our duties and responsibilities.”
As explained many times (especially in episodes 17 and 49), these statements, which are spread everywhere and repeated ad nauseam by the Aurovillage propaganda campaign, are factually and verifiably false.
The Auroville Foundation Act gives no power whatsoever to the Residents' Assembly.
Regarding the entry and exit of persons into the Register of Residents – and not the “Master List”, which is not a legal document and hence has no value whatsoever in court –, the Residents' Assembly may take up this task, but only according to the regulations of entry and exit defined by the Governing Board. This means that the Governing Board sets the criteria for entry and exit into and from the Register of Residents, and the Residents' Assembly may execute the task of actually applying these conditions to the Aurovilians, and enter or remove the names of Aurovilians on or from the Register of Residents if they do or no longer fulfil the criteria defined by the Governing Board.
That is the reality, and not what Renu claims here: what she says is a complete lie.
As regards the Master Plan: Auroville was absolutely conceived of by the Mother as a city, and the Auroville Foundation Act acknowledges this. It also acknowledges the fact that in 1988, there was no city whatsoever yet, and that this was an impediment for the development of Auroville according to the Mother's wishes and plans. Therefore, a Master Plan would be formulated by the Residents' Assembly and approved by the Governing Board, and then implemented by the Governing Board.
For anyone with still two functional braincells to rub together, it is obvious that this was a one-time exercise, and not something like “the RA will formulate a Master Plan that then gets approved, but if the implementation can be blocked then the RA can pretend that this Master Plan wasn't the real Master Plan and that they will formulate another one, and maybe another “real” one after that, if the second one was also later on considered not to be the “correct” one, with no limit to how many Master Plans the RA can formulate”. Such a thing would be absolute nonsense.
Obviously, in the virtual delusion bubble of the Aurovillagers, this last idiocy is exactly what the Auroville Foundation Act is supposed to have meant, to have said and to have written, even if in reality it wasn't written like that. Therefore Manas says that “the one that got the most votes, the most preferred RAD, was «Reframing or Reformulating the Master Plan»”, and that is why Renu here mentions it also.
In the material reality we (hopefully, even though it's a drag, I admit) all live in, Auroville's Master Plan was formulated in 1999, approved by the Governing Board in 2001 and gazetted in 2010. In other words: that task on the list of the Residents' Assembly is done. The box is ticked, it's off the list, over. Just like the whole first part of the Auroville Foundation Act, which deals with the legalities of the take-over of all assets and funds pertaining to Auroville from the Sri Aurobindo Society by the Government of India. That whole part now has only historical value, none of the clauses here have any actual impact as they were executed over time and have served their one-time purpose.
The idea that the “RA is going to reformulate the Master Plan” is an illusion, a delusion, a denial of reality, a pipe-dream, an absurdity. It won't happen, at least not in the near future and certainly not in the setting of Aurovillage with a hijacked Residents' Assembly that has usurped the powers of the Governing Board.
Strangely enough, the petitioners for this most popular RAD were not ready to start the process to take this decision to reformulate the Master Plan. I wonder if some of the Aurovillagers might be more aware of reality than they want their cult following to know.
During the whole discussion about these decisions, which of course were near-unanimously agreed “to be taken forward” (not yet approved, remember the whole charade with the pots and the orange: there's way more pots to cross before we end up with an orange), you can see that somewhere, beneath all of the pretending and the make-belief and the virtuality and the confirmation of each other's delusions, there are these little hints that everybody feels something is off: it is mentioned that all this good-will of all these “residents” and “RA members” ends up with exactly zero reality. Well, not the reality they want, of course, as reality does not stop existing. The reality they want is not what is happening: that there are every time less and less people participating in Aurovillage activities, that more and more Aurovilians (especially locals) are joining the ranks of the Secretary and the Governing Board, that the Crown is moving forward, in spite of the constant, endless harassment and physical blocking of the works by the Aurovillagers, and the reality that the court cases are not being won anymore.
They keep desperately clinging to ever more delusional stories of the magical reversal of this new phase in Auroville's development, they are now staunchly believing that when Dr. Jayanti Ravi's term ends as Secretary of the Auroville Foundation, everything will suddenly collapse and go back to how it was before – as if this whole clean-up is somehow the idea and project of one single person, appointed merely by accident (probably through the pulling of a name out of a hat), and that this person was, by sheer oversight, allowed to come and do here whatever silly idea she might have on any given day, as a total “tyrant” with unlimited freedom and powers, and with no possibility for restraint from Delhi.
Once again: read this and tell me how likely you think it is that this describes reality.
And then ask yourself how likely it is that numerous negative reports about Auroville to Delhi over the past 10-15 years, including Vikram Ram's hugely documented big criminal case, might have made the Government of India, who is the legal owner and responsible for Auroville, a bit aware of the need for some re-alignment of the situation on the ground here with Auroville's stated goals and intentions.
I'll make a very simple prediction: Dr. Jayanti Ravi has been extremely patient and is up until today extremely lenient and open for discussion, and the people who hate her and wish her gone today will cry to have her back when she is gone and replaced tomorrow. Because there is no need for her to be so careful and listening, and the circus of the Aurovillage rebellion is getting very close to the point when it has gone too far, and when there won't be any option left anymore but to end it, swiftly and radically.
Note that Grumpma says that “the Governing Board, the Secretary are all hostile towards the RA. That's what creates this emergency situation. They don't recognise the RA. The FAMC doesn't recognise the RA. Any of their committees and groups don't recognise the RA.” That is again total projection and turning the whole situation completely on its head: the Secretary and Governing Board have come in with truckloads of goodwill and willingness to cooperate and sort it out together. Everything they offered was, with extreme arrogance, thrown back in their faces. Because what the Aurovillagers claim is that the RA rules supreme in Auroville, and that the Governing Board is only there to officialise whatever these people – who have hijacked, redefined and corrupted the legal authority and body of the Auroville Foundation Act that is the Residents' Assembly – want, decide, and do.
They do not recognise the legal powers of the Governing Board, and they do not recognise everything that is being done legally. They openly state so, in every single case. Look at the reaction of the “foresters” when the FAMC asked to meet (see last episode): they literally wrote “we do not recognise you”, and they write and state this about every action or group of the Governing Board. Every time they publish something, they slander and doubt and state they do not recognise the Governing Board and its power to create committees and appoint people to them. Only because they themselves have appropriate these powers illegally over the past decades.
One of the most obvious points, but one that also seems to totally escape everyone who takes part in these discussions about Auroville, is that if the RA was actually meant to govern Auroville, the need for the “RA” to have these kinds of meetings to discuss and come up with frantic ways how the RA can function effectively, how the RA can take meaningful and legal decisions at all, would not exist. If the RA had been meant to govern Auroville, the tools to do so would have been given in the Auroville Foundation Act. It is because there was no intention whatsoever for the RA to decide on anything other than trivialities, that there are no provisions for decision making described in the Act. It is therefore that Aurovillage is in such a horrible mess: they are trying to hammer a nail with a fish, as they were given a fish to eat, and never asked to hammer nails.
It is exactly because the past way of functioning of “the RA” is illegal, that these usurpers have to go to court and do all kinds of acrobatics to somehow have their actions legalised.
It's not the Governing Board that went to court. There was no reason for the Governing Board to do so: it has all the legal powers to deal with Auroville's governance as it sees fit. The Aurovillagers went to court, because they have no legal leg to stand on, and they want the courts to create a legal crutch out of the thin air that “past precedence” is. They make the claim that because they have stolen the Governing Board's power for a few decades, they now need to be legally allowed to continue stealing that power forever.
How long is this madness going to be allowed to go on? The reaction from Delhi is exactly because of the total unwillingness of the Aurovillagers to be sensible and have Auroville's administration even minimalistically in order. I expected that when the unavoidable interference from the Government would start, they would just quickly fall in line and simply forget about their pasts corruptions, and start doing the clean-up and at the very least cooperate, to not make matters worse. Silly me. They have only doubled and tripled down, and are now in a cesspit of arrogant, blunt refusal and staunch, haughty opposition that they never can come back from without a complete loss of face, as well as a loss of power and position.
So if the start of the clean-up has only made matters worse, what is the solution going to be, other then a more determined and more thorough clean-up?
Just look at it: within a year and a half, the Aurovillagers have filed 8 or 9 court cases, all with the same claim: we want our power over Auroville back.
What is the Indian judicial system? What are the Indian courts? A casino where you can come to play roulette and just gamble on until you win, if you have enough money to fund it? Is this all just a game?
If I remember correctly, we've had judgements in 5 cases, and they withdrew the last one that was being heard, because it was going so badly it would have ended in a crushing defeat, with a verdict that would have been a total shredding, leaving no possible room for the positive spin they always need to put on their losses for the propaganda campaign. It would have been a total debacle, and so they avoided that quickly by withdrawing the case at the last minute.
Everything else is still to be heard, including two appeals.
Think for yourself. Auroville is a tiny little spot in India, hardly 3,000 people in a country with a population of 1,300,000,000. 8-9 court cases plus 2 appeals. New cases filed for everything that doesn't go according to the Aurovillagers' liking. These people discuss and live as if they are the centre of the universe. Is that acceptable?
If you were in charge of this court system, how would you handle this? You've got another 1.3 billion people's cases to deal with. You have only so many hours in a day. Would you let this nonsense fester on forever?
All of that to change the legalities of the Auroville Foundation Act, to overturn what is written there and to get an official “correction” of the Act, in the sense that the Governing Board will become the Rubber Stamping Board, and the “RA” the “GA”: the Governing Assembly, a kind of little parliament of Auroville's City-State, voted upon democratically by the Aurovilian population, who – unique in the world – are chosen by the little club of the Governing Assembly and therefore will have to be quite friendly to these dictators, as they otherwise won't come anywhere near Auroville.
Do you see it? A closed circuit in which the present cult members are in power and will always remain in power, as they are having the powers that... actually, the medieval ruling class in Europe had! Oh, thàt's what Auroville was for! To restart feudal society, as it was such a great experience for humanity! I guess the Mother must have been actually longing back for the Middle Ages instead of wanting some futuristic, ideal society where everybody lives and works in harmony because they all grow in consciousness and see that each is the Divine, and where nobody needs to rule over anybody because nobody has the wish to do so and the societal structure doesn't require it.
The only logical conclusion here is that the Aurovillagers add one last item to their virtual “RA” groups, their “RA” email domains, their “RA” online discussion forum, their “RA” News and Notes, their “RA” decision making process, their “RA” power, namely an “RA” location. They can move all together in there, and make the delusion and virtual reality an actual, physical reality in a real, material place. Bought and paid for by themselves, totally legally their own.
I suggest they call it “The Community”. Gives exactly the right amount of creep and cultism to warn rational and sane people to be very cautious, while for them having the soothing, warm and comfortable sound of “home”.
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