Press Release
New Delhi, April 5, 2018: The India Greens Party – the emerging national Green party in the country – welcomed Mr Scott Ludlam, a leader of the Australian Greens and a former Senator in the national Australian Senate from July 2008 to July 2017, in New Delhi on 4th of April 2018.
The India Greens Party thanked Mr Ludlam for visiting India and meeting with the party leaders.
Mr Ludlam — who also served as Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens in the national Australian Senate — is on a world tour to understand the Green parties in several countries. The focus of his study tour is to know about the local contexts and global perspectives of the Green parties.
The meeting took place in the Press Club of India premises. Those who took part in the short-noticed meeting included: Suresh Nautiyal (National Convener), Michael Rajchandra (Core Committee Member and Head of IT Division), Agraj Pratap Singh (Convener, Delhi-NCR). Ms Alpyu Singh (National Spokesperson) was preoccupied and Raza Haider (Core Committee Member) expressed his desire to attend the meeting but could not do that due to preoccupation.
Besides, Vinod Nautiyal (Trustee and Treasurer of the Green Forum India) and Sunil Negi (President, Uttarakhand Journalists Forum) attended the meeting with Mr Ludlam.
Mr Ludlam was very much eager to know about the progress of the India Greens Party work, its local contexts and the global perspectives.
Mr Nautiyal and Mr Rajchandra briefed him about the background of the emerging party and its activities. He was told the India Greens Party came into existence on 2nd of July 2017, however the party was yet to be formally launched.
The visiting Green leader was informed that a Core Committee, a Steering Committee and six other committees to take care of party work — constitution, policies, membership, fundraising, campaigns, communication and IT, etc, were in place and their respective tasks were underway, though at a slow pace.
They told Mr Ludlam that the concerned committees of the party were busy in finalising the party constitution and policies for the inaugural national congress by December 2018.
They said the membership campaign, an awareness campaign and fundraising campaign were yet to take off.
Mr Ludlam was informed that party’s website (www.india-greens.org) was already functional and there was a good response to it.
The Australian Greens leader wanted to know what the party would do in next five years after it was formally launched. To this, Mr Nautiyal and Mr Rajchandra said that the country was undoubtedly gripped by large-scale corruption, nepotism and crony capitalism but the party’s top-most priority would be on tackling the issues pertaining to social and gender justice, human rights, unemployment and ecology/environment. They added that the India Greens Party was committed to the six core principles of the Global Greens – ecological wisdom, sustainability, social justice, participatory democracy, non-violence and respect for diversity – and also subscribed to the Canberra Charter.
Also, they informed the Australian Green leader that the India Greens Party was inspired by so many global Green leaders like Bob Brown, Wangari Maathai, Margaret Blakers, Sunderlal Bahuguna, Gaura Devi, Risto Isomaki, etc, etc, and believed in the Local to Global concept.
The former Senator in the national Senate of Australia for a long time said that the Green activists in India were doing incredible things and were contributing to the global ecological movement in the shape of Green politics in a very diverse country. He said the marginalised communities the world over – like the Aborigins in Australia and Adivasis in India – were facing similar difficulties and hurdles and solution to their hardship was urgently called for, for the sake of social justice and human rights. He added that it would be an ecological wisdom to bring social justice to such communities the world over.
He hoped that India would soon have a vibrant Green political movement and India Greens Party on the helm of it.
Mr Ludlam made it clear that no Green activist anywhere in the world was alone as millions of Greens were there with them always and this principle also applied to the Greens in India.
Press Release prepared by: Suresh Nautiyal
