Silk, regardless of what the dictionary says, is not always tender, soft and delicate, avers Maneka Gandhi

A Silkworm Speaks
"We curse the day, between 2677-2597 BC when a Bombyx Mori cocoon from a mulberry tree accidentally dropped into a cup of hot tea that the wife of Chinese Emperor Huang-Ti was sipping, and unravelled its silky secret.

Silk for humans and 'kill' for us. No other fibre worn by humans is produced in such a cruel manner, and the deliberate or real ignorance of the brutal process keeps the consumer demand up, and therefore, our torture continues.

"Billions of us silkworms in the chrysalis stage are stifled by heat -immersed in boiling water, steamed, baked or roasted, electrocuted or microwaved, just to produce more and more reeled silk.

"If we make it to becoming female adults, humans clip our wings, making us flightless mating machines, so that we, in trauma, produce a greater number of eggs, and faster. Then we are crushed and centrifuged for you to examine our interiors for disease. If male, the luckier of us are kept in cold storage after we have mated, for 're-use'.

"This is our reality for having what humans covet."