The man behind Ahimsa silk

Kusuma Rajaiah is angry. The 62-year-old Hyderabad-based handloom technologist, credited with inventing Ahimsa silk, is upset that several Indian designers and labels are using the Ahimsa silk tag without his permission. Rajaiah holds the patent on Ahimsa silk and so, legally, only he can use the tag. Miffed, Rajaiah says that he plans to start legal proceedings against those fraudulently using the tag.

"I got the patent in 2002. I have even held the trademark and logo since 2006. I have approached the trademark council and Intellectual Property Rights Facilitation Services department. There are a lot of legal issues involved. We are at the preliminary stage of trying to identify all those to whom we will send a notice," says Rajaiah.

Rajaiah's story is well known. The Indian Institute of Handloom Technology graduate was working in the Andhra Pradesh handloom department in the early 1990s. Janaki Venkataraman, the wife of former president R Venkataraman, on a visit to the state's silk-making facilties, wondered whether silk could be made without deliberately killing the worms. Rajaiah then had no answers, but her question set him off on on a quest.

Finally in 1993, Rajaiah found a way. Unlike the traditional method, where silk is extracted by boiling the cocoon of the mulberry worms, Rajaiah's method allows the worms to hatch and leave the cocoons on their own. This was a gentler, non-violent way of making silk and Rajaiah, an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi, named it ahimsa.

"At that time, I only succeeded in creating a sample of Ahimsa silk. But in 2000, I decided to research ways of producing it commercially and in bulk. I emptied my Provident Fund account, which had `80,000, took a loan of `50,000 from a friend and bought a large amount of cocoon from farmers in Rayalaseema." Rajaiah then stored them at home, waiting for them to hatch. When they'd done so, he collected the pierced coccoon and sent them off for spinning. Sadly, it wasn't too efficient. "Out of 100kg cocoon, we could produce only 16.5kg of yarn. We then sent the yarn to West Godavari district for weaving," says Rajaiah who decides the designs and colour schemes himself.

Although his website, which he got after retirement in 2014, offers a wide range of saris and stoles, unstitched fabric has been Rajaiah's focus. "I face a lot of issues with production. Although I pay the weavers well, they are unwilling to work with Ahimsa silk," says Rajaiah, who exports Ahimsa silk fabric to the US, Ireland and Europe, where it has a few international celebrity patrons. Among them is Suzy Amis, wife of Avatar director James Cameron and Courtney Cox.

Indian designers, however, don't seem to be enthused by Ahimsa silk. "I want to collaborate with Indian designers. But they prefer buying Tasar or Eri silk from Bihar," says Rajaiah who'd also like silk consumers to look out for the Ahimsa silk trademark for every product, which claims to be made of it.

Over the years, Rajaiah has won a lot of recognition for his innovation, but none from the Indian government. "In 2008, the Andhra Pradesh government proposed my name for the Padma Shri, and in 2015, the weavers service centre proposed my name for a national award, but nothing happened. The government doesn't care," he says, adding that he is happy as long as the message of ahimsa – non-violence – goes out to people.