Francois Gautier
Francois Gautier is a French writer, who has been living in India for the past 33 years. He has a deep passion for India, and has written extensively about contemporary Hindu issues. His columns for the popular Indian news portal Rediff have made him well known amongst Hindus across the world. He currently works for Ouest-France, the largest circulation daily (I million copies) in France and LCI, France’s 24 hour TV news channel. He has authored several books in French and English.
July 27th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Interesting interview, especially this bit:
“It is important to practice spirituality rather than just read, learn and talk about it. There are in fact many knowledgeable scholars in India who could write volumes about Hindu spirituality, but in fact don’t practice any of it. This is not the way spirituality should be. It has to be lived and experienced. The genius is in living, in participating in the great festivals, in visiting the temples, in meditating, and bringing the power of the teachings into your everyday life.
(…)
This is the case with much of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). In fact it is one of their worst failures and one of the reasons why they proved so ineffective in their time in power. Most of them don’t actually practice Hinduism. To them India is a mental idea, not a living experience. Many of them are quite learned. They praise and quote Swami Vivekananda and other great Hindu teachers, but they haven’t experienced any of the teachings in their own lives. As a result they can’t understand the true pulse of India. When Sri Sri Ravishanker has spoken at RSS gatherings he has repeatedly told them this, but they don’t seem to listen.”
July 27th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Interesting…the part picked out by Dangerous certainly goes a long way in explaining the faliures of RSS/BJP
July 28th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
I would like to add a couple of thoughts based on my own experiences of Francois Gautier, firstly regarding the man himself and secondly regarding Auroville.
I have been deeply honoured and highly priveleged to meet Francois Gautier on a couple of occasions. The first was during my visit to Pondicherry a few years ago, when he was kind enough to make all the arrangements for my accommodation, etc. in the ashram there. In addition, despite having to rush off suddenly to accompany Sri Sri Ravishanker on a tour of the North East, he also ensured that I was well looked after both in Pondicherry and Auroville, by his lovely wife Namrita and some of his friends in Auroville. The second time I met him was when he and his wife visited Britain for a lecture tour, when I was able to return a tiny part of the hospitality that he had shown me.
From this and some email conversations we have had, my impression is that aside from his views, his religion, his politics, his activism, etc., he is foremost warm-hearted, generous and a thorough gentleman. Both he and his wife, though they are both highly passionate about their views, they are equally eager to hear the views of others and very happy to listen to all perspectives, regardless of who is speaking. They both display a remarkable humility and fresh honesty. Without overstating the point, I find them both to be truly inspirational people.
Regarding Auroville, I have somewhat mixed feelings. Of course, as I said, I was very well looked after and am ever grateful to Francois and Namrita, their friends and all others I met wihle there for their hospitality and the time and effort they spent in helping me to understand the idea and philosophy behind Auroville, what it is about and what they are trying to do, as well as showing me in practice how they are trying to achieve their aims. It was all highly interesting and much of it very commendable and worthy of considerable respect.
However, there was another side to Auroville that, I am sad to say, left me with a rather bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps my doubts are due merely to my own lack of understanding, in which case I would be grateful for any clarification. However, I feel it appropriate to try to explain myself as best I can - though much of it is about a general feeling of unease which is hard to put into words - I shall try my best, though I apologise if my attempts at putting my random thoughts into coherent word form is not entirely successful.
The first thing I noticed that gripped me a little was the emphasis that seemed to be placed on the fact that Auroville is not part of any other country, and is an entirely separate entity of its own, and so on. It struck me that the only reason such a place is able to exist in such a way is because it is in India, which welcomes such endeavours, and as such, it is indeed part of India and not so independent as it likes to make out. This whole thing smacked somewhat of ingratitude towards their host, India - I am unsure how Aurobindo himself would have felt about this; of course Auroville was not his, but the Mother’s baby, so who knows?
After this, I began noticing a number of small things which seemed to coalesce in my mind into a larger impression that I found quite disturbing. The only way to explain is to describe the situation. There are a number of relatively well-off white folks living in Auroville, as well as a number of relatively well-off brown (read Indian) folks, who live in the same way as the white people. These white people have all obviously brought their foreign ways of doing things and passed them around the brown folks. The lingua france in the place is English with some French, certainly not either Hindi or Tamil. There are then the locals, the original inhabitants of the area seconded by the Mother for Auroville, who are generally used as labourers, etc. and on whom various bits of social research are conducted by different faculties within Auroville; they are provided for by Auroville in return for their work. Now correct me if I’m wrong but does this whole situation not smack of firangis and brown sahibs lording their will over the poor pleb colonials? And all this in the name of spirituality and in the name of a great proponent of Indian indigenous greatness. Perhaps I’m reading far too much into things, perhaps I’m not reading enough into things, perhaps I just don’t understand the situation at all…I don’t know, something just doesn’t feel quite right to me.
It’s late, I’m tired, perhaps now wasn’t the best time to be writing this - hopefully it makes some kind of sense! And now I’m off to bed..
July 30th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
First of all we have to appreciate that a French man Francis Gautier should not have lived 33 years if India if India is not a tolerant and a sacred holy place. Most of his observations about India are very real, as we all know. The only person in the history of India in the spiritual world, who actually practiced and then preached to deserving desciples to propagate to the entire humanity was no other than Sri Ramakrishna paramhamsa.
In this modern world, as prophesied by Swami Vivekananda just before passing away from this earth, Shri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi practices in her own life and preaches to Her children.
Please do not forget we are a race who worship the sacred Cow by eating mere grass yeilds sweet milk for the humanity. In 1825 I understand India was one of the most prosperous country in the world and it is predicted that we will have the same states in 20 or so years. We do not want a super power as we witness what is happeing to super powers now but what We need is not also pompous temples. We already have enough. What we need is a country in which ever individual have enough to eat to get their full potential, good education, health and most importantly good public toilets in all villages and towns and people need to taught how to use and why to use them. It all depends upon all of us. We should not blame anybody certainly not the God.
Glory to Bharat.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:42 am
I totally understand Satya’s views on Auroville: it is the same experience that prevented me from truly considering joining the adventure.
But all of a sudden I realized that there are different ways of looking at Auroville. And the truer vision is that Auroville does not equal the (past, present or even future) Aurovilians. ‘Auroville’ in itself is a totally independent thing, a living being, in which the ideal of Human Unity will have to be worked out, even if it takes centuries. This being already exists on an other level of consciousness, and is pushing and guiding the Aurovilians towards the realization of its true self.
Since I understood this difference, I am again totally ‘into’ Auroville.
And to my big surprise I cannot but be impressed by the way many of the things that seemed so ugly in Auroville, true abberrations considering the high aims of the experiment, are not only hurting to outsiders, but also, and apparently a lot more, to a vast majority of the Aurovilians themselves.
This is for me a great comfort, and even though it will probably take a lot of time for Auroville to show itself in this truer way, I really feel that the information I can get from within Auroville is reason for hope, because a lot of problems in Auroville are forcing the Aurovilians to reconsider and question their attitudes.
With this drive, I think there is a lot more to Auroville than meets the eye.
Although I feel the Outreach-programmes for example already show themselves as genuine and honest attempts to really include the Tamil people and culture in the experiment.
For anyone wanting up-to-date and more exact information, please look at www.auroville.org.in and check for the weekly updates of the ‘News and Notes’, or check the many interviews on www.aurovillradio.org.