Be very careful with this - most Indian dishes are made with ghee (butter), yoghurt or cream, paneer (cheese), etc. Some aren't, but make sure you ask or the restaurant specifically says that it's vegan and not just vegetarian.
It would be way to difficult, and just not worth it, to be strict about being vegan to a t. So, if you are vegan for reasons other than ethics/morals then I'd strongly recommend you accept some animal products in your diet to make issues like "Is there butter in my chana masala?" a non issue.
I've been doing it for 8 years without any flexibility. It's just silly to pretend that it's not feasible.
So yeah, if you aren't bothered by interrogating every waiter at every restaurant you ever go to and returning food regularly, sure...it's not hard to be vegan. I'd rather live mostly vegan and not sweat the small stuff.
Go to any normal Chinese or Vietnamese or Thai restaurants and it's pretty hard to not find vegan foods on the menu. Mock duck, Buddha's delight, wood ear salad, stir fried soybeans and fermented cabbage, red cooked tofu and mushroom, braised seitan in soy sauce, eggplant in black bean sauce, bok choy in garlic sauce, etc etc -- these are all just normal dishes that are also vegan. The restaurant wouldn't even have to make any special accommodations for you.
The most commmon definition of vegan is "produced without the inflicting suffering on animals". Some dairy/egg/meat free diets use "vegan" as label of convenience. (No one's allergies literally fall along the boundary of "all animal products are unhealthy for me")
Many sugar varieties are not vegan (bone char).
Many beers and wines are not vegan (Isinglass from fish).
Many bagels aren't vegan (L-cysteine from feathers).
Palm oil is not vegan (orangutan habitat destruction).
"Not difficult to be vegan" makes an arbitrary set of simplifying assumptions, namely "Is there a piece of an animal obviously visible in my food). It's not that different from having an occasional piece of cheese.
I think I was overtly strict for the first decade of being vegan. Going to the extreme. Consulting the Animal Free Shopper with each purchase.
These days I don't beat myself up so much about it. I'll even take a local ale (probably non-vegan) over a bottled lager. I'll avoid heavily packaged products even if they are vegan. I'll avoid flown in exotic veg.
I think you've got to find a line that you are comfortable with and be prepared to move it.
From the vegan society: A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals - no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.
If you take: A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals.
I'd take that and read it with an emphasis on 'tries'. Easier said than done.
In my mind most steps towards being 100% vegetarian is good. I know meat eaters that are careful to source their meat, and are actually mainly vegan except for say eating meat at the weekend. Who just as much have an issue with some agricultural and farming practices. The only difference between us is that I'm not comfortable with murder for my own personal gain where I can avoid it.
I've ended up stranded in parts of the UK, where about the only option on the menu is to eat chips and salad. That gets a little boring. In Scotland I was even served powdered potato mash! In Italy I was constantly subject to ridicule. At least near the med there are vegetable options.
The special treatment of fish varies across parts of India, but the concept that eggs are non-vegetarian is fairly standard there (to a lesser extent abroad).
Right, the fish part is mostly in areas where fish is already a staple of the diet.
My point was that "vegetarian" for many Indians is similar to "vegan" in that it proscribes eggs (though not always dairy).