Ahimsa Silk helps save silkworms | Fusion - WeRIndia

Many Indian women like silk sarees. However, cocoons of silkworms are boiled to obtain smooth silk thread and around 3,000 silkworms are killed to make a single pound of silk.

Imagine how many silkworms are killed each year in the manufacturing process of silk.

Kusuma Rajaiah thought about it seriously and developed an alternative method of producing silk.

Thus he became the founder of Ahimsa Silk. This 64-year-old’s innovation does not harm a single silkworm.

Born in Warangal, Kusuma Rajaiah was raised in a farmer’s family. The area where he was brought up, was forested and there were no proper schools. However, he studied hard and joined APCO.

While he was working at the APCO, the idea of Ahimsa Silk came to his mind to prevent the killing of silkworms.

He bought 20 kg of the cocoon and kept in a cane basket at his home. He kept the moth in a separate basket after they broke out of the cocoon.

The moth normally lives around a week. Usually, people boil the cocoon along with the worm to obtain a smooth yarn. Since Rajaiah did not want to hurt the worms, he got the fibres spun into a yarn with the cocoons after the moth left.

He found that the yarn was smooth and wove two beautiful sarees without killing a single worm.

He took a patent for Ahimsa Silk. He also had its trademark logo.

He faced several issues in the production of silk initially. Several weavers did not show interest to work with Ahimsa silk.

But, now he has many celebrity patrons for his silk. However, several fake products are sold in the name of Ahimsa silk. Hence, Rajaiah warns to check the authenticity of the product before buying it in the market.

Rajaiah exports Ahimsa silk fabric to the US, Ireland and Europe.

Image Credit: Thebetterindia

Image Reference: https://www.thebetterindia.com/235579/silk-cruelty-free-real-safe-low-cost-sarees-ahimsa-garment-innovation-hyderabad-entrepreneur-silk-moth-ang136/