Future of Veganism in India

Veganism is spreading in different countries at different pace. Recently when I visited London, I got an opportunity to talk in London Vegan Festival about Past, Present and Future of Veganism in India. I sincerely believe that there is tremendous potential to nurture and grow this concept in India, however there are several challenges also, some of them are quite unique to this nation. Here in this post I am sharing my observations and outlook (in qualitative terms, not quantitative), based on my limited knowledge and gut feeling.

After being a vegan for 14 years and seeing/reading lot of stuff, interacting with lot of people from diverse background, both online and in real world, and also running a vegan business in India for the last 2 years, I believe what I write here do have some merit after all, even though there is still lot more to experience and know.

I wish some of these weren't true, but I am just sharing them frankly. If I prove to be wrong in those, I would only be happier.

Things to cheer about	Things to be worried about
Vegan awareness will increase and the vegan term will become more mainstream, thanks to increasing number of activists	Lobbying and marketing will also increase, more than ever, to protect and boost the interests of non vegan enterprises
Number of strict and long term vegans will steadily increase	Percentage wise (of overall population), the rise won’t be significant though As I see, strict vegans won't increase significantly for a long time, until people get comforts and convenience comparable to western world. It's an irony, because reaching there won't be possible without harming nature and countless animals (Some people are trying hard to spread veganism among middle class and lower middle class people also, lets see what happens, but I see chances are less)
Percentage of people who get curious about and regularly try vegan products and services will increase tremendously, even though most of such consumers might not have any plans to go vegan completely or even care about all angles of veganism (especially animal cruelty)	Number of strict lacto or lacto-ovo vegetarians will drastically decrease, though a good number of converts might consume fish, chicken or meat only occasionally. Eating non-vegetarian food won't remain taboo for them due to cultural reasons, and it will become a matter of individual choice. Also, when cultural barrier goes away, many will stop being vegetarians, surrendering to temptation, peer pressure etc.
Vegan products and services will steadily rise, no doubt, and their prices will also come down steadily with increase in volume	Plus, rise in vegan products and services are likely to be backed by organizations/people who don't really care about vegan lifestyle, but purely see it as new business opportunity Lot of new vegan products and services will continue to be aimed at upper middle class and rich people, because volume increase will not happen soon Overall (irrespective of the price and availability of vegan products and services), percentage wise as well as absolute quantity wise, more and more animals will be raised and killed for food and more
Number of pure vegan businesses will slowly rise	Many of the pure vegan businesses will fail due to various reasons Ex: starting with passion or desperation instead of strong business principles, lack of funds, inability to assess the market demand due to niche nature, trying to follow too many principles beyond technical definition of veganism, lack of unity among vegans etc. Only handful of them will sustain, perhaps mostly as side businesses, not as main income sources for the business owners
In case of food industry, vegan businesses will continue to raise eyebrows and fetch media attention, appreciation	Lacto-ovo-vegetarian businesses (maybe some of the non-vegetarian ones too) that are vegan friendly will get best of both worlds and become more successful and popular (even among vegans) Some of them will strategically (if not fully) adopt organic, local, seasonal, healthy, satvik, jain concepts also, and will gain much more success
Hope / Game Changers	Challenges
Trend can easily change with policy changes; maybe Prime Minister Modi (who is a pro-vegetarian) can influence and implement such changes?	People behind policies are heavily influenced by lobbyists
Climate Changes could very well force us away from animal farming	Lot of money/time/resources will be poured into how to sustain it instead of acknowledging its role as root cause of many issues, and this will further complicate matters
Lot of progress can be achieved with collective efforts from vegans independently Also Read: Vegan Fund for Vegan Revolution in India	- Lack of leadership who can inspire and instil confidence, and who can spend time in uniting these efforts - Objectives and priorities getting torn between 3 aspects of veganism - animal rights, environment conservation and better health - Community spread out widely, with thin population everywhere, and everyone wanting things to happen in their locality instead of elsewhere