As you step into Auroville, you’re met with roads that emerge suddenly only to vanish just as abruptly. Once a symbol of tranquility, the township now mirrors the bustling transformation of any Indian city – the landscape is punctuated with road construction, trees are reduced to logs and piled along the pathways, and bulldozers, well, bulldoze their way forward. And these are also the visible signs of the conflict raging inside Auroville. A redevelopment project that has become a focal point of contention.
Auroville, nestled within the Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu with some parts in Puducherry, formerly known as Pondicherry, is an experimental township and possibly one of its kind in world history. It was founded in 1968 by French-born Mirra Alfassa, a spiritual guru and ardent follower of Sri Aurobindo, the Indian philosopher, poet, and freedom fighter. She later came to be known as The Mother.
