Ahimsa Silk: Why it is NOT Cruelty-free and Vegan

Amidst the awareness that silk production is a cruel process, there are claims that some silk is—Ahimsa Silk or Ahimsa Peace Silk. According to the promoters of ahimsa silk, silkworms are not killed or harmed at any stage of their life, unlike in conventional silk production, where the silkworms are boiled or gassed alive inside their cocoons, to obtain the silk threads. In this article, we will find out how ahimsa silk is also not really cruelty-free and vegan.  

Vegan and Silkworm-free Silk Sarees from

Ghatkopar Cloth Store

How ahimsa silk got its name

“Ahimsa Silk” or “Ahimsa Peace Silk” was first introduced by Kusuma Rajaiah, a technical officer in the Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Cooperative Society. The idea of Ahimsa Silk is that the cocoons will be used to extract silk only after the worms have turned into moths and have left the cocoons. Described in this manner, the process is made to appear cruelty-free for unsuspecting buyers.

How the so-called “ahimsa silk” is produced: The process

1) A breeder breeds the moths and sells their eggs to a silk farmer.

2) After the eggs hatch, the farmer takes the newly-hatched worms and places them on trays with mulberry leaves.

3) The silkworms eat a lot of mulberry leaves and enter the next stage of their life—the pupal stage where they begin to transform into cocoons.

4) They secrete a shiny fiber that they wrap around themselves to form the cocoon. This shiny fiber is what people call, silk.

5) Those worms who fail to transform in time are killed or discarded.

6) The cocoons are then taken to cocoon markets. It is from the cocoon markets that any silk producer, including the ahimsa silk producer, buys the cocoons.

In effect, ahimsa silk cocoons are obtained through breeding

Irrespective of whether for ahimsa silk production or the conventional silk production, the cocoons are obtained from breeders. Breeding is done to maximise silk production for the demand that people, as consumers, create. Can we justify controlling some other animal’s reproductive cycle?

Ahimsa silk production process continued…

7) On emerging from the cocoons, male and female moths are kept together for three hours to mate.

8) The females are then segregated and placed in trays to lay eggs.

9) The males are put into the refrigerator and kept in a semi-frozen condition and brought out again and again to mate. After their power to mate diminishes, they are thrown away in the dustbin, where they linger to death.

10) The silk producers then buy a new batch of cocoons from the silk farmer, having exploited the previous set as mentioned, and as the demand continues, the entire cycle of breeding and rearing is thus repeated.

Selective breeding leads to silkworms suffering from disabilities

Bombyx mori, the species of silkworm used everywhere for producing silk, is the selectively bred and domesticated version of the wild species, Bombyx mandarina. The silkworms are selectively bred to meet the standards of the silk industry, and in the process, they suffer many disabilities.

Although the moths have wings, they cannot fly as they are bred to be large in size. They have mouths that do not function, which makes it hard for them to eat.

Even if the moths are allowed to escape from the cocoons before silk production, how will they survive if they cannot fly or eat?

Female moths are frequently crushed

Silk producers who don’t gas or boil the silkworms may cause them to suffer by providing them with inadequate food or forcing them out of their cocoons prematurely, often using fire.

Investigation on “ahimsa” silk production by Beauty Without Cruelty, India has revealed that the female moths who have laid eggs are immediately ground in a mixer and their crushed bodies are checked under a microscope. If any disease is detected, the hundreds of eggs they just laid are also destroyed instantaneously.

How is ahimsa silk, ahimsak and cruelty-free as it is claimed to be?

“Ahimsa” silk is NOT ahimsak or cruelty-free because the moths that emerge are all deformed, they are unable to fly, so they writher and die. 

Each and every punctured cocoon used for this so-called “Ahimsa Silk” or “Ahimsa Peace Silk” or “adhyatmik silk” represents suffering and death of one moth. It is no different to conventional silk for which each cocoon boiled also represents the death of one life.” states Beauty Without Cruelty, India.

There is no difference between boiling a developing life inside a cocoon, and crushing fully grown moths to death or torturing (by storing in refrigerator) and then discarding them in the dustbin to wither and die.

Is ahimsa silk practical?

In “ahimsa” silk production, when the moth leaves the cocoon, it chews a hole on the cocoon so that it can exit. It also leaves a reddish-brown stain on the cocoon. This makes silk production difficult, and reduces the lustre and value of silk. This is one of the reasons why the process of making “ahimsa” silk is not widely followed.

From a short-run economic standpoint, it is difficult to make the argument for ahimsa silk as it requires ten extra days in the process to let the larvae grow and the moths to hatch out of the cocoons. In contrast, the conventional process takes about 15 minutes. At this later stage, the cocoon yields one-sixth of the filament. This inflates the cost of “nonviolent” silk, which is priced at roughly 6,000 rupees per kilogram—about twice the price of the regular kind.

In producing ahimsa silk, the scale of cruelty is same as it is in conventional silk production, and in addition, it is not practical either. This tells us that to stop the cruelty to silkworms, the answer is not switching to ahimsa silk but it is not purchasing silk derived from silkworms.

Are “tussar” and “eri” silk cruelty-free and vegan?

Eri is a silk spun from open-ended cocoons built by castor-eating silkworms. It is a staple fiber, unlike other silks, which are continuous filament.

The main characteristic of the Eri silkworm is that it creates highly irregular, uneven cocoon that already has a hole at one end allowing it to fly out of the cocoon without breaking it. Hence, farmers do not worry about broken cocoons and eri is often harvested after the moth leaves the cocoon, making it fall under the category of the so-called “ahimsa” silk.

Ericulture or the production of eri silk is a household activity in North Eastern India, and the people practise ericulture mainly for the protein rich pupae, which they consider a delicacy. In fact, eri silk is a by-product of this process. ‘Eri’ cannot be considered vegan as, in addition to the misleading ‘ahimsa’ term, it is closely associated with eating animals.

Tussar silk is often produced by the caterpillar of a wild silk moth that is found in rain forests. Unlike mulberry silkworms, these caterpillars are difficult to cultivate in captivity, so the cocoons are sometimes gathered from the wilds. However, it is not commercially viable to collect Tussar silk cocoons from jungles.

Eri and Tussar silk producers use the overall “ahimsa” definer or add suffixes such as “peace” silk and adhyatmik silk to market them. Although they may know that such labels are misleading and unethical, but for them it is the money that matters, not the lives that are killed to make the silk.

Cruelty-free, vegan alternatives to silk

No silk, unless purely artificial, made of yarn such as polyester, can ever be truly ahimsak.

Cruelty-free silk options are those that aren’t derived from animals. The good news is, there are many luxurious animal-friendly fabrics available: nylon, polyester, Tencel, milkweed seed-pod fibres, silk-cotton tree filaments, and rayon. These are easy to find and usually less expensive, too.

Listed below are a few companies selling vegan silk sarees, click on their names to check them out:

Ghatkopar Cloth Store Sarees (certified by PETA as free from innocent silkworms)

Shubam Sarees

Alankrtam Sarees (Bangalore-based)

Exploitation of any kind can never be an act of Ahimsa: Conclusion

Summing up:

• – Silkworms are selectively bred for commercial purposes. Due to continuous inbreeding over generations, the bodies of the moths that emerge are far too heavy in proportion to their wings and so they are unable to move.
• – Female moths are crushed in a mixer and if found diseased, the hundreds of eggs laid by them are also destroyed.
• – Male moths are stored in a refrigerator and taken out for mating and put back a couple of times after which they are thrown away in the dustbin.
• – Silkworms are forced out of the cocoon prematurely, often using fire.

“Ahimsa” silk is marketed to make us feel better. Not to make the moths feel better.

It takes the life of over 50,000 innocent silkworms to produce just one silk saree, “ahimsa” or otherwise.

With so many other artificial or synthetic silk available in the market, it is our responsibility to make the ethical choice. Even if a hypothetical, ideal, truly cruelty-free, ahimsa silk production existed, it would still be himsa since we are fundamentally looking at living beings as resources.

The word “Ahimsa” in “Ahimsa silk” is a misnomer as it still commodifies the silkworm. We must remember that “animals are not ours to wear.”

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About the author, Manasa

“I’m a vegan activist and an engineering student. I went vegan after understanding that nothing justifies subjecting animals to abuse. I’m sure together we can create a vegan world where animals are cared for and looked at as individuals. I have authored a book titled ‘Larry the House Lizard’ and I enjoy drawing and painting. You can check out my illustrations and contact me on Instagram @maan_artwork.”

~ Cover image: Dan Burchmore from Pixabay ~ Cover image design: Manasa ~