The birth of Krishna, celebrated last night with much joy across the country, is a sign that the Indian festive season has kicked into high gear. In Bengaluru, it also means that it’s time to pull out the silks after months of slopping about in jeans and dri-fits.
The Government Cocoon Market in Ramanagara on the Bangalore-Mysore highway is Asia’s largest such market. (HT)
It is a bit of a shame that we don’t wear silk more, given that a whopping 70% of India’s raw silk, and 43% of its mulberry raw silk (silk produced from the cocoons of silkworms fed on mulberry leaves) are produced in Karnataka. The Government Cocoon Market in Ramanagara on the Bangalore-Mysore highway is Asia’s largest such market.
Mulberry silk is the base of the famous Mysore Silk, which became the state’s first GI-tagged product in 2005.
Well before it received official recognition, however, silk from Mysore was known far and wide. Way back in 1791, British officer Robert Andrews reported meeting two men who had been employed in silkworm rearing in Srirangapatna under Hyder Ali. By then, Hyder had been dead eight years. His son and heir, Tipu Sultan, so the story goes, entranced by the quality and sheen of a length of fine silk gifted to him by an ambassador from China, became determined to produce it in his own kingdom. He sent off deputations not only to China but also closer home, to Bengal, which had had a thriving silk industry for centuries, to source the best silkworms and related knowhow. Both deputations returned, years apart, with mulberry cuttings, but only the Bengal one brought back Chinese silkworm eggs, of the ‘yellow bivoltine race.’
In south Indian climactic conditions, the worm stopped hibernating, tweaked its genetics, and diverged from every other ‘race’ of silkworm to morph into the ‘Pure Mysore race.’
Tipu’s short reign (1784-1799), marked by the destructive Third and Fourth Anglo-Mysore wars, was not the best ecosystem for industry to flourish. After his death, Mysore’s silk production, while it continued to survive in pockets, saw a steep decline. Hopes of a resurrection in 1866, with the opening of the Silk Filature Company in Kengeri by an Italian entrepreneur – the Italians were the pioneers of filature (silk factory) technology – during the half century when Mysore was directly administered by the British (1831-1881), came to nought.
In 1893, Bombay industrialist Jamsetji Tata was on a visit to Japan, which dominated the world in silk production at the time. So impressed was he with how Japan had adapted global best practices – silk egg production from France, which used Louis Pasteur’s game-changing anti-bacterial techniques to keep the eggs disease-free, and Italian filature technology – to create their own version of scientific sericulture that he wanted to try it in India as well.
Bangalore’s mild climate, and Mysore’s established end-to-end silk production ecosystem, saw Jamesetji take his proposal to Seshadri Iyer, the then Dewan of Mysore, in 1896. Iyer bit. By 1902, the cutting-edge, not-for-profit Tata Silk Farm and training centre had set up operations near Basavanagudi under Japanese experts, and ran successfully until well after independence.
In 1912, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, inspired by the flourishing silk trade in Europe, imported looms from Switzerland and set up a factory in Mysore to produce the finest silk for the use of the royal family. Post-independence, the factory was taken over by the Mysore State Sericulture Department. In 1980, it was handed over to a Govt of Karnataka enterprise called KSIC (Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation) Ltd.
If you are in the market for a Mysore Silk saree today, make sure you look for the KSIC hologram stamped on it, which guarantees that it is authentic – and very, very expensive.
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
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