The fearless former nun fighting for India's seamstresses

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From convent to marriage to factory floor, Thivya Rakini will stand up for herself, and you. From an early age she's fought for what's right. As a child living in Tamil Nadu, she stopped eating so her parents would send her to the school of her choice. She left behind life in a convent, then a marriage, and went on to defy expectations as a working single mother. She’s now the leader of a union advocating for seamstresses making fast fashion for international chain stores and has negotiated an historic deal.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: June Christie

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:06.9	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.1	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:13.7	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history.
0:20.7	We're still looking for Lucan.
0:22.1	It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.
0:25.9	I'm Alex von Tundselman.
0:27.3	This is The Lucan Obsession.
0:29.2	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:32.3	Have you heard about that experiment where you offer a child a marshmallow
0:36.5	and you say to them, you can have that now.
0:39.9	Or if you wait, you can have two.
0:43.9	And it turns out that the child who waits to double her reward
0:48.3	ends up doing much better in life.
0:50.4	Well, Thivier Rackney is that child who waits for as long as it takes.
1:00.0	When she was 10, I still can't quite get over this, when she was 10 years old,
1:06.9	she went on hunger strike to get her father to give her what she wanted, which was a good education.
1:15.9	Divya is quite remarkable.
1:21.8	There is a Tamil word sandakori, which means fighter cock.
1:25.3	They all call me that name because I fight for myself.
1:28.2	Not only for herself, Thivia fights for every Tamil woman.
	...

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