My bizarre childhood in Auroville
The New Age commune revealed on TV is guiltier of child neglect than abuse, says Loïc Rich
I wasn't surprised by the allegations of child abuse at Auroville - a progressive European community in India - that a BBC news team made this week. As a nine-year-old boy I lived there for three months in 1982. The place is a religious sect which shows up the arrogance, naivety and denial of liberal middle-class values. It puts children in serious danger.
A town of great temple-like structures set among palm trees in the Tamil Nadu region of south-east India, Auroville promotes a humanist philosophy, elements of Indian mysticism and a US 'frontier'-style attitude. This either wore you down or toughened you up.
Adults work in construction, farming or even on a newspaper; parenting is a pretty low priority. Anyone could be a guardian, and children were left to run wild from the age of six.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
My own mother left me and my seven-year-old sister to fend for ourselves and disappeared to a remote section of the community to be with her lover. We had somewhere to sleep, a well-managed primary school, and day trips on the weekends. At meal times children ate by themselves, with a set of unwritten rules - if you got your hands on sweets you shared them with the group, else you ate outside.
Adults seemed to be there to provide for us, but with complete emotional disengagement. When the infection from a blister spread throughout my arm and I sought out my mother for help, she just dismissed me as an attention-seeker and I had to cycle to the doctor on my own. He rushed me to a hospital that had run out of anaesthetic. I remember being held down by six medics while one made an incision with a scalpel and another squeezed the poison out of my arm.
I learned to fit in with the other children and we became emotionally dependent on each other; a kind of family, with the older children looking after the younger ones. Sex was a hot topic of discussion. Being only nine I knew little of the facts of life, until they were graphically, alarmingly described by my Auroville peers. I heard of acts between fellow pupils, acts with children from the surrounding Tamil villages, and even what I would now regard as serious child abuse by adults.
Indeed, my sister twice had to fend off an attempted attack by an adult who'd persistently tried to get her to accept a lift home on his bicycle.
There were terrifying incidents of indecent exposure. We children rationalised the alleged abuse as something - along with snakes, monsoons and scorpions - that you just had to deal with in Auroville.
The solidarity among us was part Lord of the Flies, part Jonestown cult. Together we shared a hatred of the local Tamil children, who would apparently engage in sex for as little as five rupees, and those who'd been excluded from school for various misdemeanours. I suffered this fate myself when I was wrongfully convicted of stealing a purse by a self-appointed 'council' of children. I was banned from the primary school, no longer welcome in my lodgings, distrusted even by the adults and sent to live in an isolated hut on stilts in a wood. I found the solitude strengthening; I made friends with two other exotically-named outcasts - Gandalf and Mooney. Despite the horrors, there was something hopeful and well-meaning about the place.
After my mother separated from her partner and fell ill we returned to the UK. Naive young people come to Auroville searching for spiritual contentment. Although it espouses a seemingly charitable philosophy of living in harmony with nature and your neighbours, and although it attracts the support of the United Nations and the Indian Government, the community fails in its most basic purpose. Auroville just doesn't know how to care for the people who come there.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Will Donald Trump wreck the Brexit deal?
Today's Big Question President-elect's victory could help UK's reset with the EU, but a free-trade agreement with the US to dodge his threatened tariffs could hinder it
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Marine Le Pen's fake jobs trial
The Explainer The far-right French leader could face a fine, jail time, and a five-year ban from public office if found guilty of embezzlement
By Abby Wilson Published
-
How to earn extra cash for Christmas
The Explainer The holiday season can be expensive but there are ways to bolster your festive finances
By Marc Shoffman, The Week UK Published
-
Home Office worker accused of spiking mistress’s drink with abortion drug
Speed Read Darren Burke had failed to convince his girlfriend to terminate pregnancy
By The Week Staff Published
-
In hock to Moscow: exploring Germany’s woeful energy policy
Speed Read Don’t expect Berlin to wean itself off Russian gas any time soon
By The Week Staff Published
-
Were Covid restrictions dropped too soon?
Speed Read ‘Living with Covid’ is already proving problematic – just look at the travel chaos this week
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Inclusive Britain: a new strategy for tackling racism in the UK
Speed Read Government has revealed action plan setting out 74 steps that ministers will take
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sandy Hook families vs. Remington: a small victory over the gunmakers
Speed Read Last week the families settled a lawsuit for $73m against the manufacturer
By The Week Staff Published
-
Farmers vs. walkers: the battle over ‘Britain’s green and pleasant land’
Speed Read Updated Countryside Code tells farmers: ‘be nice, say hello, share the space’
By The Week Staff Published
-
Motherhood: why are we putting it off?
Speed Read Stats show around 50% of women in England and Wales now don’t have children by 30
By The Week Staff Published
-
Anti-Semitism in America: a case of double standards?
Speed Read Officials were strikingly reluctant to link Texas synagogue attack to anti-Semitism
By The Week Staff Published