“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Share Vega’s message about animal agriculture and climate change.

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Dear Climate Healers,

Everything we do at Climate Healers is in service of the Greatest Transformation in Human History (GTiHH) from Homo Sapiens Sapiens (the Caterpillar – a narcissistic, predatory “taker” species) to Homo Ahimsa (the Butterfly – a compassionate, climate harmonizing, caretaker species). This is a spiritual and cultural transformation and I feel strongly that India will lead this transformation, because India is the spiritual heart of Mother Earth, having birthed numerous religious traditions founded on compassion for all creation.

Since Veganism is the foundation of this transformation, here are my top 5 reasons why India will go Vegan first:

5. India is the Land of Ahimsa.

Ahimsa, “non-harming” or “nonviolence”, was first uttered in the Vedas thousands of years ago, in my ancestral language of Sanskrit.

Philip Wollen, the Australian philanthropist, environmentalist and animal rights activist, who was born and brought up in India, called “Ahimsa”, the most beautiful word ever written, in any country, in any language, at any time in human history.

To promote Ahimsa in the modern context, under the auspices of the International Vegetarians Union (IVU) – which, incidentally has been fully Vegan since 1992 – India hosted the YVCare Earth festival in Mumbai on Oct 28-29, the 48th International Conference on Whole Foods Plant-Based Nutrition and Health Care at the Brahma Kumari’s Happy Village in Chennai on Nov 1-2, and the Ahimsa Vegan festival at Gujarat University in Ahmedabad on Nov 4-5.

At the culmination of these festivities was the screening of Maa Ka Doodh in Hindi at Gujarat University. This movie by Dr. Harsha Atmakuri has the distinction of being so effective at opening the eyes of Indians to the cruelty of the dairy industry that almost everyone in the audience vowed to go Vegan at the end of the screening.

It was amazing!

I spoke at the offices of Cadence Design in Ahmedabad the following day to a group of engineers on “Engineering a Sustainable Planet,” and here’s a response to my host, Vidhi, from one of her colleagues,

“Yesterday, after listening to Dr. Sailesh Rao (BIG THANK YOU CHETANBHAI FOR THAT WONDERFUL TOPIC AND GUEST, IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!) I started to feel the importance and impact of not consuming any animal based product and most importantly milk.

Would be wonderful if you can arrange some session on your journey of being Vegan, its challenges, any health benefits, vegan alternative to normal food, etc.”

The Vegan seed was sown.

Following this, I traveled to Madurai and spoke to the people of Aurolab, the research and manufacturing arm of Aravind Eye Care, whose vision is to eliminate needless blindness and whose mission is to selflessly serve the 200 million people who need eye care in India. Wrote Mr. Sriram, the Managing Director of Aurolab,

“On behalf of everyone at Aurolab, I extend our deepest gratitude for visiting our organization and delivering an inspiring lecture on “How to Protect our Environment.”

Your insightful presentation left a lasting impact on all of us, shedding light on the crucial steps we can take to safeguard our environment for future generations…

We believe the shared knowledge and perspectives will resonate within our organization and empower us to make positive changes in our practices and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Once again, thank you for your invaluable contribution to our mission of environmental stewardship. We look forward to staying connected and exploring future collaboration opportunities.”

The plans for future collaboration opportunities are being drawn at the moment.

4. India is one of the most affected nations from our global spree of ecological destruction.

Of the 50 most polluted cities in the world based on annual average PM2.5 air pollutant concentration, 39 are in India.

India is also the home of the Himalayas where Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GCOFs) are becoming more frequent due to global warming.

The UN IPCC rated India as the second worst impacted nation due to climate change, second only to Bangladesh, which will literally drown if the world does not reverse climate change.

3. Indians are most impacted by the global transition to a Western diet.

During the industrialization of the world, India became the source of cheap labor and Indians were persuaded to perform that labor with manufactured famines. As a result, between 1800 and 1945, India experienced 25 famines and nearly 100 million Indians died during those famines.

The Indians who survived those repeated famines were genetically selected to store fat easily to tide over the lean times and this is serving to make modern Indians the most vulnerable to diabetes, heart disease and other diseases of calorific excess. Today, Indians are four to six times more likely to get Type 2 diabetes than Europeans.

Ever since Western fast food franchises like McDonalds arrived in India during the nineties and persuaded Indians to consume their wares, such diseases of excess have soared and Indians have begun to put two and two together.

2. The base cuisine in India is fundamentally Vegan.

Unlike most world cultures, the base cuisine in India is dhal (lentils) and chawal (rice), roti (flatbread) and sabzi (curried vegetables), idli (steamed rice and lentil cakes) and sambhar (lentil and vegetable soup), all fundamentally whole foods plant based and vegan. If Indians consumed animal products in their cuisine, it was only as an addition to a vegan base and therefore, it is quite easy for Indians to imagine returning to their traditional Vegan cuisine.

The only difficulty for Indians is dairy and dairy products, for which there are now ample substitutes in the market. In addition, people are trading home made recipes which work out to be a whole lot cheaper than the dairy alternatives. At my sister’s home, it is my brother-in-law’s job to make the peanut curd every four days, now every 3 days since I arrived as a guest.

1. Indians are not tube-lights

Finally, the number one reason why India will go Vegan first is that India is the land of creative thinkers, where people don’t just stand still at a red light even though there is no cross traffic to impede their progress.

Indians dislike being seen as tube-lights, to be suckered by corporations into becoming unwitting customers for their steady stream of pharmaceuticals and medical procedures to manage chronic diseases. Therefore, it is the country where the transition to a healthy way of eating and living will come naturally.

With much love,
Sailesh on behalf of the Climate Healers Core team.
(Akhil, Alison, Anne, Bill, BJ, Carl, Chip, Deborah, Debra, Dona, Gabriele, Giva, Jamen, Kelly, Ken, Kimaya, Krish, Maggie, Marco, Paige, Pareen, Paul, Ray, Sailesh, Sarah, Shankar, Stacey, Suzanne, Tami and Vega, the Cow and Climate Healer)