Previously published June 2026
They want people to believe that Aurovilians are resisting the building of the city the Earth needs. That we are resisting the consolidation of lands required within the Master Plan area. That we are standing in the way of Auroville’s future.
We are resisting. Yes!
But not the building of the city.
Not the consolidation of lands.
Not the realisation of Auroville’s future.
What we resist is something else.
We resist domination.
We resist the concentration of power without meaningful participation.
We resist the gradual strangulation of the freedom necessary for a conscious community to evolve.
Because Auroville was never conceived as a population to be administered. It was conceived as a living experiment in human unity, sustained by the free participation of self-determining individuals seeking a higher collective consciousness.
A city built through coercion may produce roads, buildings, and infrastructure. But Auroville was never meant to be only a “smart city,” it was conceived to be an intelligent conscious collective expressing itself in material life.
Its deeper purpose is the creation of a conscious collective life.
And such a collective cannot be manufactured through command, control and uniformity. It can only emerge through trust, participation, and the freedom to contribute meaningfully to a shared future.
Yes, we are resisting.
Not the city.
But any process that undermines the very conditions required for the soul of that city to exist.
***
This reflection above is inspired by a burning within me, one that has only been strengthened by Sri Aurobindo’s War and Self-Determination.
The book reminds us that the deepest threat to a collective is not disagreement, but the loss of the freedom necessary for its soul to express itself. It is in that spirit that I offer the thoughts above.
By Mandakini Gupta Skoles
Written June 2, 2026 as a Facebook post