Why some residents say Auroville has lost its way
Asha PrakashBosco Dominique
TNN
Jul 6, 2025, 17:13 IST IST
It started out as an experimental community based on human unity, but 60 years after its founding, the township finds its future mired in controversy and contradictions
A little over three hours' drive south from Chennai will bring you to Auroville , the lush expanse of rural land that mostly lies in Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu with some spillover into the Union territory of Puducherry. But this corner of coastal territory was not always so green, or well-known. It is synonymous with Puducherry, the former French settlement associated with the renowned yogi Sri Aurobindo, and is an outcome of the vision of the Mother, as his French spiritual collaborator Mirra Alfassa is known, and their followers. But that vision is now hotly contested and at the core of an existential challenge for the very community to which it gave birth.
A stark departure
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