European Dreams, Tamil Land: Auroville and the Paradox of a Postcolonial Utopia

[excerpt]: India had been free from British colonial rule for over twenty years, from French colonial rule for only six, when the caravans began to arrive on an empty stretch of land 10 km outside of Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, on the morning of 28 February 1968. The buses were filled with a variety of people, from European and American tourists who had heard about the construction of this utopian experiment while blazing the hippie trail through India, to residents of the nearby Aurobindo Ashram, to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officials who traveled to the south of India to give this new "international township" their bureaucratic blessing. An air of internationalism pervaded the ceremony as delegations from around the world arrived carrying the soil of 124 different nations, specially flown to Madras courtesy of Air France. As participants made a circle around a container holding the imported earth, the Charter of Auroville was read in 16 different languages and broadcast over speakers to reach the burgeoning crowd, beginning with French and English, followed by Tamil (the language of the local population), Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Tibetan. The program handed out at the ceremony read, "Greetings from Auroville to all men of good will. Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher life.