Aurovillage 22

Well, here we go again. The heat is on again, and so we've gotten new absurdities to put in perspective of... well, of some rationality? What is being said here is so far gone, that I'm really starting to wonder if we have mysteriously merged with a parallel universe in which black actually IS white. So the good news is that the infamous “declaration” paper that needs to be signed in order to get a visum extension recommendation letter, is still being signed. Still alive, in spite of all the cries of victory from the delusional side. And as a bonus, signing only gets you a 1 year extension, no longer 5 years. Guess who's not pleased... (I mentioned that we don't know what the portion of Indians is out of the 803 persons who voted to “pause” all city development, but it's a very safe bet that the Indians will be a very tiny minority, and that the Tamizhs will be almost absent.)

The better news is that the FAMC has been summoned to have their meetings convened by the Secretary, and with the agenda set by her. This is according to the Rules created by the Governing Board. Remember that section at the end of the Act that gives the GB the power to make the rules for the governance of Auroville? (Episode 19 A mentions section 32 about the rules for the entry into the Register of Residents.) The first set of rules was gazetted in 1997. They included the creation of the FAMC: «Funds and Assets Management committee (FAMC) constituted by the Governing Board under sub-section (1) of section 16 with the Secretary of the Foundation as its Convener and with not exceeding ten other members including the Financial Adviser, Ministry of Human Resource Development. » That's not much of a manual for the FAMC's functioning, but what is very clear is that the RA is nowhere to be found in this constitution of the FAMC. What they now hang their hopes on, is that the FAMC is mentioned twice as being “of the Residents' Assembly”, both times in combination with the Working Committee (a body created in the Act already, as it was clearly not the intention that the Governing Board was going to talk to 50,000 people all at the same time whenever they needed to discuss something). According to the Aurovillagers, who claim that THEY have the right to rule Auroville, these two instances in the text of the Rules (where the FAMC is mentioned in a way that might seem contradictory to its definition) overrule the very definition given at the creation of the FAMC. Which will make no sense anywhere but in their heads. They then claim that because the FAMC is thus “of the Residents' Assembly”, it would magically no longer be beholden to follow the decisions of the Governing Board, but instead be given the legal right to give the Governing Board and the Secretary a big fat middle finger. That's how Aurovillage logic seems to work. No, this is not something I invent. This is what these people actually argue. For reals.

And then the best news: Fabienne managed to escape from her besieged Outrage Media office! She barely made it out of there alive, but she heroically fooled the feisty foe with a cunning move! The moment will go down in history as The Battle of the OM. So here's what happened (please watch the video to get a first-hand idea of the situation): After nearly three weeks of Fabienne bluntly refusing to hand over the office to the Foundation, it was decided that enough was enough. A few Foundation officers went over (the Outreach Media office is in the Archives building, just next to the Foundation Office) to confront Fabienne with her disrespect and violation of an official and lawful request, and to ask that she now simply leaves the office and hands over the keys. Mr. Srinivasmurthy, since very long the Under Secretary of the foundation, was heading the delegation of four, and Joel and Sindhuja were with them to document the “event”. When they arrived at the office, Fabienne was standing talking to 2 ladies on the doorstep of “her” office. When she saw the delegation coming, she rushed inside, tried to quickly shut the door and lock it. One of the officers tried to get inside before she could actually close the door, which he could have easily done if not for his unwillingness to use his strength against Fabienne's forceful attempt to keep them out. A small discussion took place between the officers, Fabienne and her two defenders. Fabienne clung to the eternal Aurovillage kill-all cure: “We need to meet with all parties together!” (As will be clear by now, the inescapable decree of “needing to have a meeting” is the beginning and the end of all justification of all actions of the cult.) The claim on which all hopes now lie was repeated once again: “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular, therefore the Outrage Media office belongs not to the Foundation but to Fabienne in particular, because we say so”. That's about what I could get from the argumentation anyway. It's not possible to follow their reasoning, as it is devoid of logic (don't take my word for it, watch the video and judge for yourself what a high level of human intellect is on display here). It is the sort of “argumentation” that requires to have different levels of reality mashed up together, creating a chaotic, irrational universe in which whatever I say is true and whatever you say is false, regardless of what we actually say. Seeing that the officers were not going to budge, the clearly overstressed half of the support team left. The other half, having shown to be on the brink of enlightenment with gems as “When you give something to someone, you don't ask for it back!” (as if Fabienne had been given the office as a birthday present or something), remained on the spot to make sure the Under Secretary would not be deprived of her pearls of wisdom. Fabienne closed the window with a loud smack, made some phone calls, came back to the window for some more lecturing of the officials, went to the back room, out of the backdoor, locked it, and then went around to come back to her motorbike parked in the front of the building. The officers watched as she left smugly with the office keys. The Foundation put a sealed padlock on the door and stuck a note on it that this was Foundation property and should not be entered without permission. They had a locksmith come a day later to install new locks, and the recently appointed spokespersons (Joel and Sindhuja) have now finally gotten their office to work from.

That was it. This obvious nothingburger then needed to be blown up into some fierce and heroic propaganda material:

Outreach Media taken by force

Always start with a catchy title! Truth or lies, it doesn't matter: grab the audience's attention with a good dose of lower vital emotions. Once again they start out by claiming to be the victim of state violence, the truth of which we can see with our own eyes. The “force” they refer to is probably a reference to the force with which Fabienne pushed the door closed. Any other force was clearly totally absent, even when she walked away in front of them after having locked the office. It is obvious that in almost any other place on earth, Fabienne would have been arrested, probably with quite some real force.

Our recent posts outlined how the Office of the Secretariat tried to gag Auroville’s Outreach Media Office, and demanded its office space and all its assets. (See ‘Auroville Speaks up to Authoritarianism’ post)

I can't help sounding like a broken record: I'm reacting to their endlessly repetitive nonsense. So here they refer again in a totally twisted way to how Fabienne's international media attack on the Foundation and the Secretary was – what a surprise! - not really appreciated, and how when she did not comply with the request to stop promoting the output of emotional falsehoods (like the quoted text here), was asked to hand over the Outrage Media office and assets (which included the keys to the doors, obviously). It's total normal procedure, anyone would react like that, but well, they need to have a villain, so they'll create one.

Outreach Media indicated it would not be complying with the request, as all activities of Auroville are under the direct jurisdiction of the Residents’ Assembly. Yes, in their coocoolala-land maybe. In reality, as we have seen in the Foundation Act, the Residents' Assembly MAY organise activities (like referenda, eternal meetings and pizza evenings, why not). It is total nonsense to conclude from that sentence that suddenly ALL Auroville “activities” are “under the direct jurisdiction of the RA”. There's literally no line or word in the Act or the Rules that would in any way justify such an insane inversion. Please read the texts for yourself. They are not long and not difficult. It takes a lot of bad will to present the content like quoted.

Yesterday at 11:50 am, 6 people, including the Secretary’s self-appointed “spokespersons” and her Undersecretary went to Outreach Media and tried to enter by intimidation.

First of all: “self-appointed” means that people appoint themselves to some position. Which is clearly not what happened here: the Secretary (who is a lady called Dr. Jayanthi Ravi) appointed two other persons (called Joel and Sindhuja) as her spokespersons. Anyone with eyes can see that Joel and Sindhuja are distinctly separate, physical beings from Dr. Jayanthi Ravi. Hence, nobody here appointed themselves: the Secretary did not appoint herself as spokesperson, and Joel and Sindhuja did also not appoint themselves. And then again the “intimidation”. Once more: look at the video, which the Aurovillagers for some unknown reason did not want to add to their post. It's clearly not because they didn't have the video: the still they post is taken from the same footage, and the person who made the video is clearly not unwilling to supply needed material. So why did they not post the video? As a wild guess, I would suggest that doing so would probably expose their story a bit too fast as a total scam?

The Outreach Media staff member who was present was shocked but managed to leave safely.

Are they trying to beat me on my own turf – sarcasm? This is a line straight out of a satirical article. Watch the video and see how Fabienne is the only person with an aggressive attitude. She escaped safely from... from what? Bird poo? The fish in the pond? The grass in the garden? Herself? We'll probably never know. What we DO know is that she took the keys with her. Which, if someone would be very strict and accurate, comes down to theft of government property.

This morning, a notice was posted on the door, along with a sealed lock – see image above. The legality of this act is in question.

What can one still say? Apparently, we now live in a universe where the Aurovillagers are the legal owners of Auroville and its assets, and the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation is a thief in her own house. And since it is the total opposite of what is written in the Auroville Foundation Act, they now need to "correct" the Act so that it fits their interpretation and reality.

As mentioned in our previous post, the Auroville Foundation is governed by 3 bodies. At present, the Office of the Secretariat is assuming executive authority, whereas there is supposed to be a balance of power between the three.

They really do not have a lot of inspiration and creativity, do they? Once again: there is NOWHERE in the act any mention of such an imaginary “balance of power between the three”. On the total contrary, it is blatantly obvious that ONLY the Governing Board has any real power. And the Secretary is the acting, residing arm of the Governing Board. Do they believe it themselves? Or is it just that if you repeat something enough times, people actually take it as truth? And that if enough people say it is true, the court will also say it is true?

Many Auroville residents believe that the sign posted on Outreach Media’s door is illegitimate.

Sure. Luckily for the rest of the world, what “many Auroville residents believe” is of exactly zero importance to reality.

The Office of the Secretariat does not speak for the Auroville Foundation as a whole. Eh... pardon me? This is again so convoluted that it turns the laws of nature on their head and we can expect time-travel to become a normal occurrence very soon.

First of all: the Aurovillagers themselves constantly claim to speak for all of Auroville. Which is absolutely not the case.

Secondly: the Secretary and her staff do and express exactly what the Governing Board has decided and wants to see implemented.

Thirdly: the Aurovillagers may not agree with what the Governing Board does and decides, but so far, the Foundation has done literally nothing that is not in line with Auroville's aims and ideals and the Auroville Foundation Act. On the contrary: they do exactly THAT which is described, and correctly point out that the Aurovillagers are the ones who are blatantly violating Auroville's aims and ideals, changing the whole project into something completely different than planned, and wanting to have the content of the Act and the Rules interpreted as the total opposite of what is written. If the Aurovillagers oppose the implementation of Auroville's set development, they put themselves outside of the Act and therewith renege on the right to be part of Auroville and the Auroville Foundation.

Not only is a small, fanatical minority of people continuing to act outside of the law and due process, but they are doing it with violence and force.

They can only be describing themselves. Over the past 50 years, no less. Do we notice that they use the exact same tactics as mainstream media do? Always labelling the other side as a small, violent and asocial minority, without any rationale as to WHY their claim would be valid; always short, emotional statements without any proof or source; no background, no context, never a call for "do your own research" or an acknowledgement that people should try to find as much info as they can and make up their own minds. ONLY indoctrination: endless repetition of short, highly emotional slogans that need to be taken as gospel truth.

What happened to Outreach Media yesterday is a violation of correct process, and a trauma.

"Correct process" meaning: having endless meetings without a decision so that we can continue doing what we're doing with a facade of justification.

Well, they can always get a job as script-writers for cheap tearjerkers. Maybe that can help with the healing process of their trauma.