(Published in The Hans India on March 29, 2015)
Wear silk, but must you slaughter silkworms?
Thousands of silkworms. “Boiled or treated with hot air”. For one saree.
Yes, you read it right. This was before
Kusuma Rajaiah revolutionized the process of making a silk saree. The question
is, can Ahimsa silk replace the cruel silk?
In 1991, Mrs. Janaki Venkataraman came visiting to Hyderabad. As was the
custom, a few menfolk, then working with the Andhra Pradesh State Handloom
House or APCO, carried the best of silk sarees for the former President's wife.
A thoughtful woman that she was, she asked them if they had a saree that was
woven without sacrificing fifty thousand silkworms. Yes, you read it right
again. As many as fifty thousand silkworms make one silk saree. So our
flummoxed APCO folk went back with their sarees, and posed the same question to
their in-house technocrat in handloom technology – Kusuma Rajaiah.
Little would Mrs. Venkataraman have anticipated her question was going
to a spark a lifelong revolution to save the silkworm. Rajaiah's revolution –
in the name of Ahimsa silk. "Why do you have to wear silk? Can you not do
without it?” he raises his voice at me. I was hit by his anguish and passion.
Meet Kusuma Rajaiah. A 59 year-old from Hyderabad, Telangana. So humble
and so down-to-earth, you will be struck by his simplicity. This man has been
leading a crusade against slaughtering silkworms for over 25 years now. All
alone. These “ill-fated voiceless insects are “born to die”, he laments. “What
business have we to interrupt their natural lifecycle?”
"In earlier times, tradition was to wear and wed in madhuparkalu, garments made from cotton
for the bride and groom. Even the richest stuck to the code. Today even the
poorest buy silk for such occasions. They do not mind being cheated. We are
that corrupted with silk for the sake of richness and grandiose. It’s a show of
wealth!" I couldn't agree more. I also feel guilty as I am reminded of the
heaps of silk that my family bought for a wedding and images of cocoon
slaughter float before my eyes.
We go back in time to 1991, when
it all began. The then President’s visit left Rajaiah enough food for thought.
After much careful study, he made the impossible happen. He made his first
Ahimsa silk saree that year, after setting the silkworms free.
“In the conventional method,” he explains, “a thousand yards of silk
filament is produced from one cocoon. And 95 percent of it is usable”. The
conventional method is the one where live cocoons are mercilessly treated with
hot air or boiling water to obtain unbroken filament. This has become standard
practice – not allow the silkworm to leave the cocoon. If the insect leaves the
filament breaks, and the processor cannot have continuous filament. Hence, no profit.
Rajaiah waits for the insect to break out of the cocoon. Never mind the
discontinuity in filament. So the filament obtained from the Ahimsa method is
only 15 to 16 percent usable. That is the major challenge, commercial
viability. Therefore, there are few takers.
“My process is also time-consuming and labor-intensive”, he adds as a
matter of fact. But, unlike its cruel counterpart, “Ahimsa silk is
air-permeable and wrinkle-free.”
His next task was to ensure quality of the yarn produced. After much
trial and error, and “burning his fingers”, he figured Ahimsa silk would be of
better quality were it mill-spun rather than hand- spun. He ran from pillar to
post looking for a mill that would be so kind as to allow his brand of silk to
be spun. Rajaiah persisted with the Lohia group for three months, writing to
them repeatedly and visiting their Hyderabad office, before they allowed him to
explain his cause and concept. “I had to go Raipur in Chhatisgarh. First I had
to reach Nagpur from here. And from there I sat in a passenger train to Raipur,
in bone-biting cold!” The silver lining is that journey had a happy ending and
has resulted in an enduring relationship between Rajaiah and the Raipur mill.
To this day, he sends his worm-free cocoons to Raipur, and they send him back
Ahimsa yarn. He remembers, nostalgically, “first time I sent 100 kilos of
pierced cocoons, and they sent me 16.5 kilos of yarn.” The 15 to 16 percent
usability of Ahimsa filament, so to speak.
He admits rather modestly that he did not know he could be granted a
patent for his Ahimsa concept. “I was rather naive. I had no idea until some
well-wishers urged me to patent my innovation. Back then in 2001, in Hyderabad,
there was neither the right person nor place where I could apply for one.” So
he went to the Patent Office in Chennai. There they were rather aghast and
furious that not only did he not apply for a patent but by then he had let the
press in on his kind method. “They were very helpful. They acted on their heels
to get me a patent for Ahimsa silk in the name of “Eco-friendly Method of
Manufacturing Mulberry silk (Bombyx Mori) Yarn”.”
The press coverage, which may not have given him soaring popularity, did
earn him a niche international clientele and repute. Ahimsa silk has since made
inroads into countries and celebrity wardrobes around the world. Something he
is quite upbeat about and something that keeps him going. “You are the first
one to know that my silk has reached the Duchess of Cornwall... and then of
course, Megawati Sukarnoputri.” Earlier this year, he wove an exquisite Ahimsa
silk in kalamkari print and dye for the Obamas. “I could not get an appointment
to meet them.” The Obamas do not know what they have missed! “You know celebrities
in Hollywood take interest in my work and are approachable.” Mary Fanaro of
OmniPeace, a humanitarian fashion brand, called on him while he was in the US.
“And Courteney Cox too. She wanted to meet me in person and learn more about my
work. Over a simple meal, we had a great conversation.”
“I am just a small entrepreneur,” he says. In the larger scheme of
things, however, it is these small entrepreneurs like Kusuma Rajaiah who are
harbingers of change and innovation. Their enterprise, all it needs is a fillip
of hope that only the state or private venture capitalists can provide. But is
commercial viability the all-important, all-determining factor? Does social
relevance of such enterprises not beg some investment to take them further?
CS Ramalakshmi, the former Commissioner of Sericulture, shares her
thoughts with us. “Cost is certainly a significant factor. Ahimsa silk is more
expensive than conventional silk. Also, powerlooms and to an extent, even
handlooms require long fiber.” She adds further that why Rajaiah is unable to
make a mark is also because of little visibility. For a beginning, the deities
in the state must be adorned in Ahimsa silk, Ramalakshmi thinks.
In 2007, the officers in charge of the state government’s Handloom and
Textiles were extremely supportive of his initiative, and Rajaiah’s future
seemed bright. An application was sent to the Union Ministry of Textiles
nominating Rajaiah for the Padma awards. “Now, of course, it must be lost in
the sea of government paperwork”. He never followed it up.
Every governor, chief minister, and the handlooms minister were
presented Ahimsa silk on their birthdays. In fact, one of the governors wrote
to Rajaiah how immensely touched he was by this gesture. But, the tradition has
died.
What lives on is the spirit and ethics of non-violence. Gandhiji once
sent a message to the Indian silk industry asking it to produce silk that
spared silkworms. “What can be more rewarding than realizing the Mahatma’s
dream!” concludes Kusuma Rajaiah.
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