Puducherry: Farm forums and social activists staged a one-day token fast on Friday to condemn Auroville Foundation for its decision to take over Annapurna Organic Farm, where organic farming scientist late G Nammalvar once trained, and to hand over the farmland to IIT Madras to establish a sustainability campus to promote green energy technologies and innovations.The associations registered their protest against ongoing land exchange controversies and “high-handed encroachments” within the Auroville township. They put forward a comprehensive 15-point charter of demands to safeguard Auroville’s founding ecological vision and protect local communities.In addition to dropping the proposal to hand over Annapurna farm to IIT, they demanded that the foundation cancel all land exchanges carried out against the wishes of the Auroville Residents’ Assembly after 2021 and that those involved in corruption be penalised.“Since 2021, a series of decisions have raised serious concerns about the protection of Auroville’s founding vision, its land, ecological work, and residents. In particular, Auroville’s long-standing commitment to organic farming and sustainable agriculture has come under threat, with the future of Annapurna Farm, Auroville’s largest pioneering organic farm that has contributed to Auroville’s food security for decades, now at stake,” said a statement issued by Tamizhaga Vivasayigal Pathukappu Sangam (Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Protection Association), one of the protesting farm forums.Countering the allegations, a statement issued by the Auroville residents, serving in various Auroville services, working groups and administration, said challenges concerning Auroville’s planning, administration and land transactions have already undergone judicial scrutiny. “Important challenges have been dismissed, including proceedings concerning the Annapurna lease. We regard this campaign as an attempt to obtain through external pressure what its proponents have failed to establish through the legal proceedings,” said the statement.The statement further said Auroville exists to realise the vision of the Mother (Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator Mirra Alfassa). Auroville’s land, institutions and collective work cannot be subordinated to individual possession, personal preferences or pressure campaigns. Residents using Auroville Foundation property by permission are permissive users; no one can claim or treat that permission as ownership or an unrestricted veto over lawful institutional decisions.“Auroville was founded by the Mother and dedicated to the realisation of her vision and her vision alone. Its future cannot be held hostage to individual whims, fabricated accusations or campaigns demanding that its lawful institutions abandon their work. These campaigns seem to be motivated by nothing more than personal grievances, private missions, and, for some, self-promotion and a search for fame,” said the statement.
