Since the Auroville Management does not wish to regulate parties we decided to ask them for licenses for unregulated parties. Somehow the Auroville Foundation Office and Working Committee is not well aware of the law for events and parties. Now that the party is over, we will ask the Auroville Foundation and Working Committee to submit all the licenses taken for these parties.
After all licenses are sought, the official closing time is 10:30 pm.
Post the illegal party for which we will now ask for the licenses, the Aurovilian who organised it was involved in violence with another Aurovilian resident.
22nd February 2020
From:
Vikram Ramakrishnan,
Auroville
To:
The Secretary,
Ministry of Human Resource Development,
India
The Chairman,
Auroville Foundation
The Governing Board,
Auroville Foundation
The Secretary,
Auroville Foundation,
India
The Working Committee,
Town Hall,
Auroville
SUBJECT : ILLEGAL PARTIES GO UNABETED & REQUIRED LICENSES FOR SUCH ACTIVITIES IN AUROVILLE
Respected Sir / Madam,
Greetings and Happy Shivaratri to All…
Some Aurovilians have a different understanding of Shivaratri organizing illegal parties, as usual today - 22nd Feb 2020, and unabated, increasing dependency on drugs and narcotics and making Auroville unsafe for women. I would like to highlight the festival organized today at Well Cafe (Venue) Svedam, Auroville under the blanket of Art, Autonomy protected by the Auroville Management to keep a population of distracted, hippie population of residents. Even community parties need licenses - this is the law of the land followed by all Indian citizens across the country.
I would also like to highlight the letter by the Under Secretary to Working Committee on the same attached herewith.
I would also like to highlight the 55th Governing Board minutes of the meeting, point no. 9.15:
Kindly see the video posted by Well cafe on social media - it will throw light on the ambiance and neon black lights (used for psychedelic drugs) Video attached
Kindly provide me with the following licenses for the festival:
PPL
IPRS
NOVEX
Loudspeaker License
Police Permission
Entertainment Tax NOC
Floor plan of Dance Floor
Foreign Artist Performance License
PWD Department (for generators)
After all these licenses are sought has to shut before 10:30 pm. Law and licenses regulate anti-social activities, visa defalcation, disturbance to neighbors and copyright infringements. Selling Art and Flea market is noble to empower the poor artisans although DJs and psychedelic trance and progressive house have nothing to do with divine consciousness especially when it is unregulated with a 1970s Woodstock mindset. It spoils our local culture and contributes nothing to Indian Society except to misguide youth.
This is the exact reason why Auroville has become a safe place for anti-social elements protected by the Government of India. Such kind of festivals is where drug peddling is rampant in Auroville and has made a society of hippies where Auroville is 50 years behind its goal of a supramental society and Aurovilians are way off the Original Charter, the purpose of Auroville itself.
Kindly do the needful to curb drug dependency and regulate such festivals in Auroville, a statutory body under the Ministry of HRD.
Warm Regards,
VikramRam
VIOLENCE BY ILLEGAL PARTY ORGANIZER
AN AUROVILIAN WRITES:
Dear members of Working Committee and Council,
I am writing this email to request an immediate intervention from Auroville working groups to prevent further incidents of violence caused by L**** in the Sve Dame community.
During my drive back home yesterday around noon, L**** blocked me on the path (located next to Well Café) and started to attack me both physically and verbally. From what I could understand, he was enraged by the interruption of the dance party at Well Café that had taken place on Saturday. On the evening of the event, my husband V***** went to Well Café at 10pm and asked the DJ (a non-Aurovilian) to stop the loud music. The DJ refused to do himself and told V**** that he himself should take the action to stop the music by pointing to the DJ Mixer. After receiving this information, V***** pulled down the volume controller on the mixer. The party then concluded.
Please find outlined below my detailed recollection of the incident:
1. Yesterday around 11:50AM I was passing a path next to Well Cafe to reach my house. I was alone on a TVS moped. Upon seeing me, Louis stormed out from Well Café (located on the left side of the path) and blocked me from driving on.
2. I didn’t have any idea why he blocked me in such a violent manner. I politely asked him to let me pass, but instead of doing so he held onto the steering bar of the moped so that I could not drive.
3. He then started to shout the following things:
“V**** came to the Well Café event on Saturday night and stopped the music.”
“V**** ruined the event. You sent V**** to stop the music and you wrote up a report that you sent to the groups. Therefore, you don’t deserve to live here. You two, move out from Sve Dame. You cannot use this path anymore because I don’t want to see V****’s & your face. I will block this path and throw you out from Sve Dame.”
[To clarify => I was in my room watching a movie with my noise-cancelling headphones when V**** went to the dance party to stop the music at 10pm. He did not inform me that he would be doing so. I did not instruct him in any way to put the volume down. It was L****’s wrong assumption]
4. While he was shouting at me, he physically assaulted me: he kept pushing my chest with his right hand and ferociously poking my forehead with his finger many times (in such a way that my entire head was being moved around). I urged him several times to stop and move away from the path.
5. Despite my verbal request to stop his physical violent movements, he kept on continuing to assault me in a physical and verbal way.
6. During this time, I spotted ***** (who has been working in the Well Café for years) and asked him for help. He was on his phone and didn’t come till the end of the incident.
7. ***** acted like a mad person who was not in a stable state. He looked like a drug addict as his lips were shivering in such an uncontrollable way. He placed his face so near me that his nose was almost touching mine. As a woman, this type of unconsented physical proximity from a man made me feel extremely uncomfortable. While he kept on going with his verbal abuse, my face became splattered with his saliva because he was heavily shivering his lips and shouting at the same time. It was the most vulgar experience I have ever had in my life. As a knee-jerk reaction to protect myself and get myself out of this situation, I slapped L**** in the face.
8. After receiving the slap, L**** started attacking even more aggressively in his rage. He slapped me in the face many times using both hands simultaneously.
9. At this point in time, S**** (a partner of V*** from Pony Farm) and E**** (****) appeared in the scene and told me that I deserved this type of treatment because V**** did an unacceptable thing (stopped the dance party at 10 pm) on Saturday night.
10. When some people were surrounding us, L**** started to poke my forehead repeatedly and claim that “I didn’t beat you up first. I just did this, this, this…”. He started to repeatedly push my face and chest with his finger and hand in an intolerable way. At this point again, he once again placed his face near mine and started to splatter me with his saliva through his uncontrolled ranting.
11. I asked the S**** and E**** to call the security, but they didn’t do it.
12. Louis shouted at me that he had a hundred witnesses who would support that I slapped him, so he would be fine.
13. The workers from Well Café who did not witness the entire incident from the very beginning joined the scene and started to shout at me as well.
14. At this point, L**** flipped off my sunglasses from my face which I was wearing. It flew away and upon landing, both lenses came out.
15. L**** aggressively took my bag and started walking in the direction to my house. He threw it on the ground and shouted at me “YOU LEAVE THE COMMUNITY, MOVE OUT! YOU ONLY CAME HERE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER!!!”
16. Finally, I was able to escape from L**** and went to the Auroville Council office and asked the secretary to call Auroville security and Council members for help.
I feel completely mishandled, abused and assaulted. I do not believe that this type of violent, aggressive, ignorant behaviour should be tolerated in our community. Even if there is a difference in opinion, there is always a non-violent way to communicate feelings and opinions. This type of violence towards women should be avoided at all cost. I still cannot believe that he exerted his physical power to stop me from returning home. I am still in a state of absolute shock.
I strongly urge you to address this situation and take measures to effectively prevent this type of violence from ever happening again.
Thank you for your help!
Sincerely,
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