This document has been compiled anonymously from verified sources including official correspondence, formal complaints filed with the Minister of Education and the Madras High Court, and documented community records spanning 1996 to the present. Every item described is supported by dated documentary evidence. This is a public record in the interest of transparency and accountability.
Note on terminology: References in this document to the “Auroville Foundation” refer specifically to the Foundation Office, its Secretary, and the Governing Board. The Residents’ Assembly, which forms part of the broader Auroville Foundation structure, has repeatedly and overwhelmingly opposed the conduct documented here and is not implicated in it.
IAC Statement 18 May 2026: Five former members of the Auroville International Advisory Council have published a formal statement condemning violence in Auroville, calling for a halt to land exchanges, and confirming visa intimidation of residents. The statement specifically names the 20 March 2026 Youth Centre dismantling as involving unprovoked physical attacks on inhabitants.
Named Accountability Record: A full record of every individual who held an official role during the period of documented harm — including their specific roles, decisions, and actions — is published alongside this document at:
aurovillefoundationrecord.netlify.app/accountability
Summary
The Auroville Youth Centre has been one of the most remarkable alternative education environments in the world for nearly three decades. Built by generations of young people with minimal funding and voluntary labour, it has been the place where Auroville's youth learned finance, construction, forestry, crafts, performance, community life, and self-governance — not from textbooks, but by doing.
Since 2021, the Auroville Foundation under its current Secretary has conducted a sustained, systematic campaign to destroy it. What follows is a documented record of how that campaign has been carried out.
Bulldozers and police arriving at 1am on 5 December 2021 to uproot trees in darkness — Aurovilian teenagers arrested
Over 100 unidentified men entering the Youth Centre at 7am on 9 December 2021 with bulldozers, destroying buildings, infrastructure and trees — residents manhandled
Accounts frozen, electricity cut, water supply severed
Social media ordered closed as a condition of eviction
Internal media instructed not to report on the Youth Centre
Assets seized without compensation or independent valuation
False claims made about residents' legal status to justify eviction
The Foundation Secretary has refused to answer basic administrative questions for over four weeks
This is not a dispute between community factions. This is a documented record of institutional abuse of power, conducted with impunity and in the absence of any legal justification that has ever been provided in writing.
- Bulldozers and police arriving at 1:00 AM on 5 December 2021 to uproot trees in darkness — roadblocks erected and several Aurovilian teenagers arrested before being released
- Over 100 unidentified men entering the Youth Centre at 7:00 AM on 9 December 2021 with two bulldozers, destroying infrastructure, buildings and trees — residents attempting to intervene were manhandled
- More buildings demolished on 9 December 2021 than had been discussed or agreed
- The Secretary verbally offering INR 10 lakh as an inducement to vacate with a 7am deadline — no written agreement, no due process
- Alleged violation of the NGT stay order by laying HT cable in the trench on 22 December 2021
- The events of December 2021 received coverage from multiple major Indian media organisations, including The Hindu (“Auroville residents protest uprooting of trees for contentious Crown Project”), NDTV, The Quint, and The News Minute — confirming that the violence and its community impact were independently reported in the national press at the time
(The Hindu, NDTV, The Quint, The News Minute — December 2021)
- Six days notice to vacate a thirty year community facility in December 2025 with no legal basis, no appeals process, and no prior formal warning
- On 20 March 2026, a group of Foundation-aligned individuals entered the Youth Centre to carry out clearing and dismantling operations. Community witnesses present report that serious physical violence occurred during these operations, including assault of a Youth Centre resident and a visitor who attempted to document the incident. The pizza oven and performance area infrastructure were partially destroyed during this operation, eliminating the Youth Centre’s primary independent source of income
(Community witness testimony — 20 March 2026)
- First Information Reports were subsequently filed with Pondicherry police naming Joel van Lierde and Antim in connection with the events of 20 March 2026. On 24 March 2026, police attended the Youth Centre site in the presence of over 100 community members to investigate. Anticipatory bail was granted to individuals named as victims in the same incident. A counter-FIR was subsequently filed naming the original complainants as defendants. Further legal proceedings are ongoing
(Police and court record — March 2026)
- On 18 May 2026, five former members of the Auroville International Advisory Council — Dena Merriam, Gabi Gilessen, Michel Danino, Julian Lines, and Doudou Diène — published a formal public statement specifically naming the 20 March 2026 Youth Centre dismantling as involving “unprovoked physical attacks on some of its inhabitants.” The statement connects this to a documented pattern of violence including the forced takeover of Afsanah Guest House and the occupation of the Auroville Council room, concluding that “the use of violence is increasingly seen as an acceptable means to impose authority in Auroville”
(Statement by five former IAC members — 18 May 2026)
- Written order in the eviction notice requiring closure of all Youth Centre social media pages as a condition of eviction
- Instruction to Auroville's internal publication News & Notes not to publish any announcements from the Youth Centre
- The Foundation's Legal Coordinator calling in formal correspondence for social media account operators to be identified and investigated by the Ministry of Education
- Deletion of the Youth Centre's page from Auroville's official website following the Youth Centre's legal notice
- Foundation Office declaring in writing they would entertain no further exchange with anyone regarding the Youth Centre
- The @auroville.org.in email server is configured to block any correspondence that simultaneously includes Residents’ Assembly domain addresses (@auroville.community and @auroville.services) in the CC field. This setting means the Foundation Office systematically rejects emails that include legitimate RA community governance addresses — effectively severing communication between the Foundation and the community's own elected bodies. This was confirmed on 8 May 2026 through testing and corroborated by the Auroville Global Fellowship. Every piece of correspondence sent without RA domain addresses in the CC was delivered successfully and is on the formal record.
(Confirmed 8 May 2026)
- Youth Centre budget frozen in April 2023 with instruction that all activities should stop and a new team formed
- Maintenance payments for named YC members stopped in May 2023
- Accounts frozen after the Christmas Fair due to unspecified financial unclarities
- Unity Fund account dissolved making independent fundraising impossible
- Crowd-funding subsequently declared illegal
- Pizza nights subjected to three years of retrospective GST demands despite being donation-based rather than commercial
- In May 2025, FAMC instructed Youth Link to immediately cease all activities at the Youth Centre — removing the Youth Centre’s last remaining collaborative partner and isolating it further in the months before the final eviction was enforced
(Youth Link correspondence — May 2026)
- Electricity cut on 3 November 2025, taking water supply with it, requiring a hired generator at additional cost to the financially stretched centre
- Accounts suspended simultaneously, requiring third party intervention to restore
- Pizza oven and performance area infrastructure partially destroyed, eliminating the Youth Centre's primary independent income stream — the Saturday pizza nights that funded all programmes
- Eviction notice offering accommodation and employment to resident YC members in exchange for compliance — coercion presented as support
- Falsely claiming in the eviction notice that the two remaining resident YC members were not registered in the Register of Residents
- ATDC stating in writing there is no need to meet while simultaneously demanding complete removal of the campus as a precondition for any future dialogue
- FAMC instructing the Youth Centre to meet ATDC with a single point agenda — relocation — while refusing all other discussion
- Presenting the eviction as collectively agreed while the eviction notice's own contents confirm the Youth Centre repeatedly refused relocation
- Years of sustained institutional threat preventing the Youth Centre from attracting and retaining the voluntary energy, creativity and labour on which it depended — a slow-acting destruction mechanism in itself
- The Foundation's Legal Coordinator simultaneously held the roles of Legal Coordinator, Head of Urban Planning, Media Content Vetter, Official Spokesperson, HR Service member, and Town Development Council member — responding to formal complaints about the administration as if she were an independent resident
- The Auroville Foundation has operated without a Governing Board for several months — the body that is supposed to provide institutional oversight and accountability has ceased to exist, leaving the Secretary without formal check or challenge
- The Foundation Office appointed its own parallel Working Committee containing members who were specifically deselected by the Residents' Assembly with an overwhelming majority — meaning the body signing official correspondence and responding to formal complaints is not the legitimately elected Working Committee but a Foundation-appointed substitute operating in its name
- The same pattern of parallel structures extends to FAMC and ATDC — the Foundation has effectively created shadow versions of legitimate community bodies, allowing it to act in the name of community governance while bypassing the community entirely
- The Working Committee that responded to formal complaints had three members removed by Residents Assembly resolution in 2022, upheld by the Madras High Court, with remaining members never elected and the whole body past its term since 2024
- The Auroville Global Fellowship documented that 97% of nearly 1,200 residents expressed opposition to the administration's methods in 2022, and 98% of 945 residents voted against the Secretary's land deals in 2024 — directly contradicting repeated official claims of minority opposition
- In May 2026, the Foundation working groups published a comprehensive public statement on Facebook in response to a formal statement by five former International Advisory Council members. That statement provided the most complete self-identification of Foundation-aligned body members yet produced — simultaneously confirming memberships across the Working Committee, ATDC, FAMC, ATSC, ATR, and Auroville Safety & Emergency Services on a single public document. The administration's decision to respond to an internationally credible advisory body through a Facebook post rather than official channels is itself indicative of its current institutional standing
(Foundation working groups public statement — May 2026)
- Three separate official responses to formal complaints — none of which provided a specific legal basis for the eviction
- No investigation cited, no formal finding referenced, no named incident produced to support the claim that Youth Centre activities were not aligned with Auroville's values
- No response whatsoever to five core questions placed on formal record since 27 March 2026: why was the Youth Centre evicted, under what legal authority, who authorised the 2021 attack, what due process was followed, and what mechanism exists for redress
- The Foundation Secretary Dr Jayanti Ravi failing to respond to a formal letter of demand with a stated deadline of 27 April 2026 — the third unanswered formal communication addressed to her. The three questions she was asked are as follows:
1. On what date will electricity and water supply to the Youth Centre be restored?
2. On what basis are the Youth Centre's accounts currently frozen, and when will they be reinstated?
3. What is the formal process by which the eviction order can be reversed and protected status granted to the Youth Centre?
- The original location of the Youth Centre was caused by an institutional planning error in 1996-1997 for which the youth were never compensated — that unresolved error has been used as administrative justification for thirty years of pressure and ultimately destruction
- The administration consistently refused all collaborative proposals for alternative road alignments that would have preserved the Youth Centre — suggesting removal of the Youth Centre was always the objective rather than a consequence of the road
- The Crown Road was built through the site as a direct result of the December 2021 violence. The violence that enabled its construction was never investigated, no one was held accountable, and the administration has never acknowledged that anything improper occurred
- The timing of the December 2025 eviction notice coincided with the fourth anniversary of the December 2021 destruction
- The systematic destruction of the Youth Centre's financial independence — accounts, pizza nights, fundraising, GST demands — followed a clear sequence designed to make the centre economically unviable before the final eviction
- On 18 May 2026, five former members of the Auroville International Advisory Council published a formal public statement condemning the use of violence in Auroville, calling for a halt to all land exchanges, and confirming that more than 30 residents are currently without valid visas with recommendations withheld by the Foundation administration — several of whom have been told explicitly that their visa status is tied to their compliance with the administration. The statement was signed by Dena Merriam, Gabi Gilessen, Michel Danino, Julian Lines, and Doudou Diène
(Statement by five former IAC members — 18 May 2026)
- The Youth Centre occupies prominent central land — raising serious questions about whether this is about a road or about prime real estate
- A public petition opposing the closure has attracted over 7,400 signatures from community members and international supporters
The Questions That Remain Unanswered
Since 27 March 2026, formal complaints have been filed with the Minister of Education, copied to the Madras High Court General Registry, major Indian and international media organisations, human rights legal organisations, and civil liberties bodies. Three official responses have been received. Not one has answered the following questions:
Why was the Auroville Youth Centre evicted for a relocation?
Under what specific legal authority?
Who authorised the 2021 attack and what accountability followed?
What due process was followed before and during the clearing?
What mechanism exists for those harmed to seek redress?
The Foundation Secretary Dr Jayanti Ravi was given until 27 April 2026 to answer three basic administrative questions. No response was received.
This record is now being submitted formally to UNESCO, to India's Parliamentary Standing Committee, to human rights legal organisations, and to media organisations internationally. It will remain publicly available as a permanent record of what occurred here, and of who allowed it to happen.
Auroville was founded under the patronage of the Government of India and has received six UNESCO resolutions of endorsement since 1966. The world that endorsed this project is entitled to know what became of it, and who made it so.
Named Accountability Record
A full named accountability record of every individual who held an official role during the period of documented harm — including their specific roles, decisions, and actions — is published alongside this document:
aurovillefoundationrecord.netlify.app/accountability