Animal Activist Ravi has been a full-time individual animal activist for 2 years. He is on a mission to create awareness about animal rights, speciesism and animal liberation, especially in the Telugu states. He has worked as a strategic consultant in the field of market research before becoming an animal rescuer and a vegan activist. In the coming 5 years, he aims to reach every citizen of Telugu states with the message of animal liberation and justice.
What made you go vegan?
I have been vegetarian since childhood as a part of our family tradition but not really from the standpoint of values and ethics. One day I saw a PETA video about the cruelty of the dairy industry which shook me from inside. I didn't know about veganism, animal liberation or any of these terms, but I decided to not participate in this injustice and over time, I asked basic questions on consuming animal products and using animals for our created needs, and then I got clarity. I never followed any animal activist except Gary Yourofsky, especially his great speech which made me see the bigger picture, the deep-rooted problem and the living hell that we created for animals.
From being a vegan to becoming a full-time animal rights activist and founding Mission Vegan Andhra, what was your journey like?
After my MBA, I worked as a strategic consultant. After turning vegan, I started questioning the purpose of my life and it slowly turned into depression. I left my job thinking that I will leave my body gracefully. For almost a year, I was completely depressed. It might sound weird and people might think of it as suicide, but it wasn't that. It turned into a situation where I felt that the atoms outside me and atoms inside me are the same. It is not related to spirituality. I just felt it. I was in that thought process for almost a year but I was not able to leave my body gracefully. I was doing meditation, trying to reduce my hunger and other necessities. I realised that I wasn't able to do it, and also even if I leave, it wouldn't matter.
Thus, I decided that as long as I live, I will make sure that my mind, body and energy react the same way to another being’s pain as it would to my own pain. My pain or hunger should be the same as someone else's pain or hunger. I started with dog rescues after this. I spent around Rs 1 lakh for many dog rescues in Vijayawada because there was not much animal welfare in the city at that time. I started a group here for dog rescue, filing cruelty cases against people who undertake mass killing of dogs.
Slowly, I started taking lectures in colleges on animal rights including veganism.
I collaborated with Harsha Atmakuri (founder of Truth is Vegan) and made three videos on chicken and egg. Due to some differences, we parted ways, he started TRUTH IS VEGAN and has been doing a tremendous job, and I continued with Mission Vegan Andhra. For one year, I didn't partake in any digital media. I was taking lectures and rescuing dogs. It was because I was never totally convinced that, "If I speak, people will change".
Then I started introspecting, how I changed to a vegan, and found that because somebody was speaking for animals, it touched my heart along with logic and ethics. I got clarity with these thoughts. Also, many kinds of oppression are getting more voices and coming down with various movements be it racism, sexism etc. that made me believe that this is the right opportunity to take the animal rights movement forward. I have seen great responses when I take lectures for 60 people, 5-6 people pledge on the spot and at least 1 vegan will come from the audience.
Seeing the positive response for my lecture, I got confidence in marking videos on speciesism, veganism frequently and publishing it on the MVA page. Along with that, I also try to derive numbers on animal agriculture and its impact on the environment pertaining to India, to make the content relevant to the audience. Also, the main focus is on regional language, currently only on Telugu, because a large population consumes information in regional languages. Earlier, I worked as a strategic consultant, so I have the number-crunching skills. Using that, I have compiled all the information. All these are not peer-reviewed, but I'm sure the numbers will be falling in the range of real numbers. At present, there is no wide research in India on animal agriculture and its environmental impact. I would love to be part of these kinds of studies, which I think are necessary for the vegan movement.
What is your approach while giving lectures?
While taking permissions, I generally don’t use terms like veganism, I make administrators of college realize the importance of environment and animal rights and the need for education on these topics especially to the next generation. As they are not covered in academics, it's very important that younger generations are educated about these social issues and obviously I never charge any money.
I start the lecture with basic questions like, who are we? Are we important to this planet? Many feel that we are very important but if we think deeply, we are not that important for planet earth. Our planet will be so happy if we perish. We are not that significant and our contribution is negative. After these questions, I will start with things about plastic, water pollution and such. Then I talk about dog rights, wildlife, circus and zoos. Later, I move to animal agriculture and how milk, meat, and eggs are affecting animals and the environment.
I can’t directly talk about meat and dairy because it is the first time that they are listening to someone who is talking about animal rights. So, if I directly talk about chicken, most of them will not connect and even get offended. In the last two years, I got the opportunity to deliver the message on animal rights in 150 institutions of different kinds, mostly schools and colleges in Andhra and Telangana.. For this year, I had planned 100 lectures but due to this pandemic, it might not be possible.
When you are giving a lecture, have you faced situations where people tell you that you are enforcing your views and putting pressure? If yes, what is the response?
I don't give them the chance. My approach is aggressive yet balanced, emotional and sensitive. For the first 30 minutes, it's all about building the boundaries, so that they are in the right zone to understand the reality. It takes about half an hour to build this up well. Along with that, all the excuses which non-vegans give, I ask as a question and answer them instead of keeping it as a Q&A session. I do so because when you tell them to ask questions, many might be afraid of asking the questions in front of everyone. Second, they want to keep those questions to themselves so that they can keep on convincing themselves to eat. Thirdly, they might not get the right question at that moment.
In your two years of activism, what are the positive and negative moments which you would like to mention?
There have been a lot of positive moments. I am not representing any organisation. When I started, I never thought I would be doing 150 lectures in 2 years. My father is the principal of a school and he knows all the principals of schools and colleges of Vijayawada. But I never took his help to get permission to lecture. It is because I want the administration and principal to value animal rights rather than my father or me. I just go with a small visiting card and explain my views with a genuine voice and concern. And then I ask for permission. It is not just important to address the audience, it is also important to make the administration sensitive about animal rights. I never thought that in a place like Vijayawada, I would find such a good response. I have met so many open-minded principals and other administration people.
Regarding negatives, I face them every day. From morning to evening, I get so many comments involving my parents, my sister. I have seen a lot of abusive messages. In my initial days, I easily used to get hurt, but now whenever they abuse me, I reply, "It is of no use and a waste of time if you abuse me. If you have any logical points, please discuss". With positive replies, I'm getting better results. All the positive responses from people keep me moving.
Do you have a team? If yes, how does it work?
It is completely an individual animal rights activism. All the videos are fully made by me. Right from script writing to shooting, uploading and page handling, everything is done by me. This is my full-time work, so I'm able to manage all this. And I also feel that, in social justice movements, individuals are as important as organizations. And individual activists have freedom to stick to their vision and mission and design their own activism with flexibility.
You want to make veganism look simple. For vegans who are not full-time animal rights activists, what suggestions would you like to give?
Many times vegans come to me and say, “Come anna, let's rock it”. Let's make everyone vegan in a flash. But the truth is, that doesn't happen. I was tired with my family, friends and many others. We have a fire within us to make everyone vegan the very next day of becoming vegan. But that fire if not channelized will only backfire. Even if they know all the reasons, there is a high chance that they won't turn vegan in their lifetime and that is fine. What we can do is just try our best. People shouldn’t say that vegans are extreme, that will do more damage to the movement instead of good.
There is a very thin line. We can make them aware as to why veganism is important and push to a certain limit. For example, in my posts and status updates, I keep a mix of posts. Some are related to animal rights and rest are random stuff related to movies, politics etc. This is to make them understand that vegans are normal people and everyone can be vegan.
But I know that the fire will not let us sleep until we speak to everyone about veganism. But for practical purposes, we need to mould ourselves and bring a mix of posts, messages, approaches. If you want to speak, put your efforts in talking to more people instead of bombarding one person with all the facts. We need to make efforts to reach out to more and more non-vegans instead of sharing posts among ourselves all the time.
Anything else you want to add?
One thing I would like to comment on is the intersection of human rights and animal rights. I respect both human and animal rights movements obviously. I don’t think animal rights will be a hindrance to human rights and I don't believe human rights movements need animal rights platforms at least for now, as the Animal rights movement is very small compared to human rights. However, bringing human rights issues in the animal rights platforms, communities more often than necessary will derail and delay the movement.
What are your views on COVID vaccine being developed and tested on animals? Many bring this corner case to vegans.
The main problem is, we need to accept the fact that, in 95% cases, whatever pharma products are tested on animals are failing in human trials. So, there is absolutely no need for animal testing in the first case. But these are age-old policies surrounded by lot of red tape which needs revamp in a huge way.
There should be a structural change with pressure from NGOs, individuals and with enough support from government, testing of animals can be slowly phased out, replaced by In-vitro and human tissue testing. Until then, we don’t have another way. Veganism is not about being 100% perfect, but doing the best to refrain from harming animals in any given situation.
A message for non vegans...
Being vegan is a natural consequence of being sensitive. Being sensitive is the natural consequence of being human. Let us be sensitive towards every life, let us see the reality, as it is, without any filters of social conditioning. Let us see beyond animal products, look into the eyes of animals and realize animals are not products. This is so simple.