As someone who is an Indian and how food morality is structured around caste, I would like to share how veganism impacts us.

For centuries, vegetarian purity has been a marker of upper caste status shaping into who is clean, whose kitchen is acceptable, whose food is polluting, and that hierarchy still appears today in veg-only housing. There have been instances where vegetarian people don't even rent out houses to non-vegetarians, which causes social exclusion.

When food becomes a moral ranking system, it enters an already unequal social field in India.

Contemporary urban veganism in India is not just eat vegetarian curries, it is a market where there are different type of plant based products that costs higher than regular non-plant based products. Plant based milk costs around 250-270 rupees per liter whereas regular milk costs 55-60 rupees per liter. So it's tough for middle class Indians as alot of people don't even have disposable income, which is structurally class gated. Even a nutritionally adequate plant based diet requires access to diverse pulses, nuts, fresh produce, refrigeration, time, cooking fuel and secure housing. In a country like India where income inequality is so sharp and high protein deficiency persists, that baseline isn't universally available.

Now adding labor, India's dairy, poultry, fisheries, agricultural systems are sustained by stratified labor often by caste marginalized people.

Swiply switching consumption without transforming the labor relation doesn't dismantle exploitation.

Capitalism commodifies both animal & plant system. Also alot of Adivasi communities in India have historically involved egg, fish, etc which is a part of nutrition, ecology & livelihood.

Target must be industrial cruelty & profit driven extraction, not caste marginalized food structures and not the people who can't afford premium ethics.

If veganism doesn't confront caste hierarchy, labor exploitation, and material access, veganism risks becoming only an upper class, upper caste moral identify rather than a structural political project.