The uncertainty of youth in Auroville at this time, describing their experience when schools are defunded, spaces closed, and visas threatened.
.
Written August 2025
I grew up believing in Auroville as the city of tomorrow—a place where young beings could flourish, experiment, and build something unprecedented. Today, as I watch the systematic dismantling of everything that made this dream possible, I feel a profound grief not just for what we’re losing, but for what we might never become.
The attack on Auroville’s youth is nothing short of an assault on our very identity as a city of the future. When bulldozers destroyed the International Youth Centre, they weren’t just demolishing buildings—they were crushing the spirit of free progress and possibility that youth brings to any society. When Mitra Youth Hostel was cleared to house financial auditors, the message was crystal clear: administrative machinery matters more than welcoming the next generation. When Kailash residents and caretakers were kicked out with no space for dialogue, the ones who had to pay the costs of injustice and heartlessness were again the youth. In all this, we see a pattern that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what Auroville was meant to be.
The Mother envisioned Auroville as a place of “unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.” Yet today, our schools face devastating budget cuts while having received no increases since 2019. How can we claim to be building the future when we’re starving the very institutions meant to prepare young minds for that future? Education budgets slashed, cultural programs defunded, youth spaces shuttered—this is not the blueprint for tomorrow’s city, but the death knell of yesterday’s dream.
How can young people feel welcome in a place that systematically eliminates their spaces and opportunities? Where once there were vibrant youth communities fostering creativity and collaboration, now there are empty lots and administrative offices. The message to youth is clear: you are not wanted here, your energy is not valued, your dreams are expendable.
For international youth especially, the barriers have become extremely dissuasive. Visa recommendations are delayed till the last moment to keep applicants under pressure, and in some cases they’re even withheld as political weapons. Housing, already scarce, becomes even more elusive when residents can be evicted with days’ notice. How can we ask young people to invest their lives here when everything they build can be destroyed by administrative whim? How can we expect them to start families when their children’s future hangs on the mood of cold-blooded bureaucrats?
The current system demands that youth invest their time, energy, and resources while offering no security, no guarantees, no protection from the arbitrary exercise of power. One day you’re contributing to the community; the next day you’re labeled an “opposer” and face losing your home, your livelihood, your very right to remain in the country. This is not the foundation upon which any sane person would build a life, let alone a revolutionary city.
I speak from growing personal experience of this insecurity, and being exposed to many friends’ doubts. Every day brings new uncertainty—will our visas be renewed? Will our housing be revoked? Will our work be recognized – let alone valued – or will it be dismissed? For those of us who haven’t yet spent our entire lives here, the calculation becomes increasingly stark. Why struggle against impossible odds in a place that doesn’t want us, when the world beyond—despite its own challenges with rising authoritarianism and far-right movements—still offers opportunities, stability, and the basic dignity of predictable processes? Why persist in living in a place with no checks and balances and no judiciary protection, when laws are still being upheld in other places?
The tragic irony is that Auroville desperately needs its youth—our energy, our idealism, our willingness to experiment and adapt. We are the ones who would carry the vision forward, who would solve the challenges of sustainable living, who would contribute to demonstrating that human unity is possible. But we cannot do this while constantly looking over our shoulders, wondering if today will be the day we lose everything.
When I was a child here, I believed Auroville would show the world a new way of living. Now I worry it’s becoming just another example of how fear and authoritarian control can destroy even the most beautiful dreams. Unless something changes dramatically, unless the youth are welcomed back as essential partners rather than tolerated nuisances, many of us may have to make the painful choice that more and more young Aurovilians are making: to take our idealism and energy somewhere that values them.
The future of Auroville was meant to be in our hands. Instead, we’re watching it slip through fingers that have been systematically pried open by those who seem to fear the very tomorrow they claim to be building.
An anonymous young Aurovilian who still hopes but grows weary