Peace and tranquillity greet the dawn along Puducherry’s coastline. The sound of waves recedes as one turns into the French Quarter’s well-laid streets, lit by soft yellow lamps. A grille gate opens into a serene area, where the scent of flowers deepens the silence. Volunteers guide visitors toward the rectangular marble samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa at the iconic Sri Aurobindo Ashram. A 30-minute meditation near the samadhi makes you experience inner peace.
Sri Aurobindo arrived in Puducherry in 1910 to pursue his spiritual quest. His vision and teachings attracted a growing circle of disciples. When he withdrew into seclusion in 1926, the mantle passed to Alfassa, known as the Mother, who carried forward the spiritual torch of Aurobindo’s teachings.
Auroville—a lush, sprawling 57-year-old township with international roots—lies barely 12km away from the French Quarter. A narrow lane dotted with tamarind and neem trees hides the iconic golf ball-like structure at the centre of the township. The Matri Mandir, as it is known, describes the divinity and the serene beauty of Auroville.
Launched by the Mother after Aurobindo’s passing, it was envisioned as a place where people from all over the world could live together in peace and harmony. Situated in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram district, with parts of the 3,000-acre property extending into Puducherry, the township was designed by the French architect Roger Anger. Auroville is derived from the name of Sri Aurobindo. It is believed that representatives from many nations and Indian states - from 124 nations and 23 Indian states- brought handfuls of soil and placed it in a specially designed marble urn at the centre of Auroville to mark the laying of its foundation on February 28, 1968.
Auroville’s bioregion has more than three million trees. Over 2,700 people from 50 nations live here. “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. It belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor,” says Jayanti S. Ravi, secretary of the Auroville Foundation.
The township produces leather goods, ethnic clothing, incense, aromatic oils, semi-precious ornaments and a hundred kinds of trinkets. “It is not just the question of immersing yourself; it is getting out of the materialistic world and working as a community. There cannot be any materialistic desires in Aurovillians,” says Anuradha Majumdar, a member of the working committee of the Auroville Foundation.
From ceramicists to painters, printers, sculptors and craftsmen, Auroville has nurtured a wide variety of experimental creators. It is also home to a semiconductor chip design centre and a music-healing centre. The chips designed by the young team at Auroville led by IITian and PhD scholar Sanjeev Ranganathan were used in drones in the Ukraine war. “I have been at Auroville for over 12 years,” says Ranganathan. “It has helped me synthesise many aspects of my life. I have come here to serve the divine.”
Auroville’s master plan resembles the form of a galaxy with several arms extending from a central region. The form was envisioned by the Mother herself. At the centre is the Matri Mandir, and radiating outward from it are four zones, each focusing on an important aspect of the township’s life—industrial, cultural, residential and international. The surrounding township is a green belt consisting of forested areas, farms and sanctuaries with scattered settlements.
“The Mother got one of the top architects of the time from Paris and she designed this whole city,” says Ravi. “Every little thing was designed by her. She even talked of this element called “the Crown”, where only e-vehicles will go at a [maximum] speed of 16kmph. I don’t think Tesla or any other electronic major existed when she envisioned this.”
The governing board of the Auroville Foundation, led by Ravi and members like Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi and Puducherry Lieutenant Governor N. Kailashanathan, is working towards realising the master plan to turn it into a self-sustained city.
“We believe the galaxy plan envisioned by the Mother is a sacred geometry; it is a yantrik plan,” says Sindhuja Jagadeesh, who came to Auroville to work under the guidance of architect Andre Hababou of Auromodele Atelier.
Auroville has not been free of internal conflicts and disputes, especially in the past three decades. In 1988, the Union government passed the Auroville Foundation Act to introduce a threefold governance structure for the township that comprises the governing board (appointed by the government of India), an international advisory council and the residents’ assembly. All assets are vested in the Auroville Foundation, headed by its secretary. The residents’ assembly handles community life, the governing body has experts overseeing policy based on suggestions from the advisory council. A government-appointed secretary coordinates administration, including resident registration, and visa and legal matters.
The Mother’s vision was to draw 50,000 servitors to the township to pursue the path to realising Aurobindo’s vision. But in these 57 years, only 2,000 have been mustered for the cause. Half of them are Indian, and the rest are mostly French and German. At its peak, the township was home to 3,500 people from 64 nations.
The Auroville Foundation Act was passed with an aim to “protect the community”, but most Aurovillians—particularly the French and the Germans—do not see it that way. “The spirit of Auroville is under threat,” says a French member of the residents’ assembly, who has been living in Auroville for 30 years. According to him, the Union government’s intervention sidelined Auroville’s two important authorities—the residents’ assembly and international advisory council. Since a new governing board was constituted five years ago, Auroville has been marred with protests, evictions, legal battles and power struggles. “It is an obvious imposition of external authority,” says one of the protesters. According to her deforestation is happening and farmlands are being ruined to implement new projects that apparently do not align with the vision of the Mother.
Key projects proposed by the governing board of the Auroville Foundation include the launch of the first phase of a 1,000-bed residential complex to house 380 individuals, a tram line, a Crown Road, and a sustainability campus in association with IIT Madras. The government has reportedly invested nearly Rs1,700 crore in the projects. “Several construction projects that the governing board has approved are against the rules laid by the foundation,” says Major Arun P. Ambathy, a resident.
Protesters say deforestation, visa denials and threats are the new norm in Auroville. “The ecosystem in Auroville is known as tropical dry evergreen forest (TDEF), which is a rare type of forest indigenous to southeast India. Auroville is home to the largest such in the world,” says Ambathy. “But deforestation is happening at a faster pace here in the name of development.”
Two residents—Navroz Kersasp Mody and Sandeep Vinod Sarah—have obtained a stay order against tree-felling from the National Green Tribunal. “We also offered to collaborate with the foundation and the governing body to work on a trajectory for the Crown that takes into account their concerns [regarding] mobility and infrastructure needs…. But unfortunately, there are people who believe that the Crown must be a perfect circle as indicated in the schematic maps, as they believe a perfect circle has the occult power to accelerate the development of Auroville,” says a foreign resident.
However, according to Jayanti Ravi, the NGT stay order, which was issued in December 2021, and the entire judgment of the NGT, issued on April 28, 2022, was quashed by the Supreme Court on March 17, 2025. “The judgment of the Supreme Court has unequivocally set aside the NGT order, stating that it has jurisdictional defect and maintaining that the master plan had statutory force and should be implemented by the Governing Board. Therefore, the claim by the protesters calling the implementation of the master plan authoritarian doesn’t have any legal mandate,” she clarifies.
The protesters allege that, over the past three years, at least 300 Aurovillians have either left or been asked to leave the township. The visa renewal of at least 150 residents is pending, and more than 10 Aurovillians are stranded abroad. Jayanti Ravi dismisses this claim by the residents and says that from July 2021 to September, 23, 2025, a total of 2,601 applications—comprising entry visas and stay visa extensions—were processed, and recommendations have been issued for all of them, which in turn represents a 100 per cent visa recommendation issuance. Only two former residents received Leave India notices from the ministry of home affairs, which again is based on MHA’s own internal inquiry and report. “Even if we have to consider these two cases, it means 99.92 per cent of the visas of the foreigners have been renewed,” says Ravi. In fact, this is extraordinary compared to the visa rates of some other countries in the world, she points out.
According to the foundation and Jayanti Ravi, over 50,000 residents have passed through Auroville in the last 57 years. “The number has been stagnant at about 2,000 since 2005, and at any given moment, there have not been more than 2,000 residents in Auroville. But the register of residents did not receive a meaningful update since 2005. And only since 2022, after the new administration took charge, the long pending task of updating the register of residents was done. After years of calling out to residents to fill the form and be available for verification of living and working in Auroville, and being compliant with the residence criteria, which was pronounced by the Mother in 1968 as admission guidelines—about 550 previously registered residents were found to have either left Auroville several years ago permanently, deceased, or living in Auroville without a valid visa, or in violation of the residence criteria and hence could not be verified as residents. This shows that the residency, for some, was a mere status symbol, and people were using this status illegally to retain assets that belonged to Auroville or to vote online in processes which were conducted also without the authorisation of the administration and without a verified register of residents. Now, since the formation of the Admissions and Terminations Scrutinising Committee (ATSC) under the Auroville Foundation (Admissions and Termination of Persons from the Register of Residents) Regulations 2023, it has been ascertained that 2,082 persons from all over the world have come from 2021 to 2025 to join Auroville as volunteers, which is the first necessary stage of the process to becoming a resident. About 589 persons have completed their newcomer process and are now waiting to be formally entered into the Register of Residents. The number of people that have either left Auroville or died since 2021 is 68—about 17 persons per annum,” explains Ravi.
The entry of 2,082 persons since 2021 makes it clear that at least 488 persons a year come in to Auroville from all over the world. There are 872 children in Auroville between the ages of one and 18. These numbers clearly indicate the growing population inside Auroville, as against the claims made by the protesters, who are only a mere faction of the residents. “Everyday, the ATSC receives an enormous number of applications to join, and Auroville strives to keep up its development of infrastructure and housing to handle the influx of willing volunteers who aspire to join the community. Apart from this for the first time, the ATSC assesses the compliance of people in the RoR against the residence criteria and updates the RoR annually. This is based on the guidelines given by the Mother herself, which had been ignored since decades,” says Jayanti Ravi.
“There is a deliberate attempt to quash dissent,” says one other resident, who lives in Auroville with her husband. According to her husband, visa renewals now come with a validity of just two to three months—apparently to make sure that the foreign residents do not get to come back.
“However the foreigners residing in Auroville can get visas only under the Indian immigration law, which is a sovereign prerogative of the Government of India and cannot be termed as a right. Every Auroville visa requires periodic renewal, is subject to recommendation of the Auroville Foundation and is finally decided by the ministry of home affairs (MHA). As per law, long duration of stay doesn’t confer any automatic right to a visa,” Ravi says.
Foreigners in Auroville are eligible for two specific types of visas created for them—X-2 and X-3. Frederick Schulze-Buxloh, an 86-year-old German who helped build the Auroville community from scratch, is one of the many people bearing the brunt of visa delays and simmering tensions. An inquiry committee report has accused him of purchasing benami properties and organising mob attacks inside Auroville. The protesters inside claim that he was issued a “Leave India” notice in May this year by the ministry of home affairs. But as per records Frederik was issued an exit permit by the FRRO and not a Leave India notice as claimed by the protesters, according to Auroville Foundation. In fact an exit permit is a standard administrative instrument when a person is found to be in India without a valid visa. The Auroville Foundation had in fact recommended his visa. “The MHA independently reviewed the case and delayed clearance due to multiple documented complaints and long-term obstruction of statutory development work. Earlier this year, the FRRO revoked its exit permit and issued Frederik an Entry X2 Visa. To be precise the final decision of a visa issuance rests solely with the Government of India, not the Auroville Foundation. And because he is a cancer patient, the foundation and the Government of India have renewed his visa and he has been allowed to stay back in India,” Ravi clarifies.
Ravi maintains that visa renewals happen on time. Despite the conflict and the protest, Ravi, an IAS officer, is determined to realise the galaxy plan. While the government is playing a larger role to make the Mother’s vision come true, “the protesters inside—a strong vocal clique, who are just a mere faction of residents—are strongly opposing the lawful development of Auroville, according to Ravi. This clique, she says, does not represent the community. “While opposing the development plans the protesters seem to control the narrative by spinning media wars, with wild slander of Auroville and its ongoings on media and social media, filing frivolous court cases." There have been over 24 court cases filed by them in the last three years. And out of these 24 cases, 23 have been dismissed by the court. Some of the residents who have been helping the administration have raised concerns of harassment and intimidation by this group,” Ravi clarifies.
Legally, the Auroville is a statutory township under the Auroville Foundation Act, 1988. And as per law, the Government of India is constitutionally responsible for land protection, infrastructure funding, residency regulation and all administration and management including that of funds. As per the Act, the residents have the right to advise the Governing Board on all matters and a majority of residents are appointed to committees of the Governing Board. “This a good indicator of the continuing trend of participatory governance,” says Ravi. Participation in Auroville, however, does not replace rule of law and it functions within it. The Foundation comprises three bodies under it namely the Governing Board, the Residents Assembly and the International Advisory Council. The Governing Board derives authority directly from Parliamentary legislation specifically Sections 11(3) and 17 of the Act. Voluntary residents, authority groups and community bodies have consultative roles, not sovereign Section 11(3) of the Act. Incidentally, the current development is corrective governance, not ideological deviation, says Ravi. “The current development and efforts are ever closer to the ideology and raison d’etre of Auroville than ever before,” she says.
Gautam Goshal, a governing board member, says it was only after Ravi’s arrival that much-needed changes in Auroville happened. “Auroville’s achievements are not to be denied, but it is a fact that there was stagnation and paralysis,” Goshal says. “Auroville, if it wanted to be alive, had to wake up.”