 You're watching newsclick.in. We're talking today about the situation in the United States of America and if you hadn't already seen that video, that was 16-year-old American tennis player, Koh-Koh-Koh-Koh, whose message was, is deeply personal, but also one that seems to resonate with an entire section of society in the United States of America. From the newspapers and the coverage of the protests that have broken out across that country over the past few days after the killing of George Floyd, we can tell that discrimination against minorities, racism, hundreds of years after or more than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation is still a very real thing that the black community and as well as Hispanics and other minorities, including the large chunk of Indian Americans, face in that country on almost daily basis. We're talking with Bevav Ranganand and Leslie Xavier of Newsclick Sports today. Putting a little bit of context on this entire story, of course, getting an update on all the news that is coming out of the U.S. as well as how the international media is reporting the developments. We'll be looking at it from the perspective of, of course, athletes who are coming out because very disproportionate percentage of elite athletes belong to minority communities and this is true for the U.S. as much as it's true for India as well. So we'll be bringing some of these things into context and having a conversation around them and around minority rights, around racism, some of these issues. I'll come to you, Bev, first, just for a quick update on what's been happening over it's been night in India, what's been happening overnight, what are the papers saying and other news outlets saying, so let's pick that up. So actually we were supposed to record this a few hours back and at that point of time we had, we were going to talk about just a few athletes, young athletes in the Bundesliga as well as Naomi Osaka and Coco Goff from in the WTA who had supported, who had sent out messages in support of George Floyd and condemning police action against minority groups in the U.S. Since then, in just this little, in the time that we were asleep, a lot has changed. Now I go through my Instagram feed and every athlete I follow has put up a black square on Instagram, which is now seems to be the message standing up against racism. And Liverpool last evening in a training session, all their players and staff found a circle around the center circle and they took a knee. Floyd Mayweather, a man who is famously known for not saying much, has come out and said he's going to cover the funeral costs for George Floyd. In the new surrounding George Floyd's murder, it has now been classified as a homicide. Medical investigators have classified the death as being caused because of the knee on his neck and the U.S. president has tear gas protesters outside the White House so that he can go to church. So, several questions coming out of the update that Weber gave us, Leslie. Among them, of course, the most significant one perhaps in the context of this conversation is why it's taken so long for non-black athletes or athletes in general perhaps to come out and support their I don't know, compatriots, their colleagues, their counterparts, their competitors or however you wish to describe them. Despite the sports arena being a place where people across race, religion, nationality, ethnicity in India cast to some extent come together. So, there is a sense of solidarity within the community and yet at times like this when solidarity is what is perhaps most needed, you also find that that's when it's the most lacking. So, just contextualize this for us in the Indian sort of sphere less and what is the sort of reaction that we're getting out of Indian athletes are people coming out and talking about it and are they also talking about things that happen within our own system, within our little sphere? So, it's, I mean, the world is an open playground that way. Earlier, Weber was also mentioning about social media and how things catch fire there. So, athletes, regardless of whether they react to this or stand up in support of solidarity to the people who are fighting against racism in the US, it would come across as something very opportunistic and frivolous in the Indian context because our sports stars, cricketers, athletes, across any sport you take, footballers, everybody remains silent when things happen closer to home. And India is not perfect. India's discrimination is multi-layered, religious discrimination is there. We also have a, I mean, widespread of ethnic differences across states, languages are different. And being part of the sporting ecosystem, we have come across, we have seen various instances of discrimination against athletes. Be it sports persons coming from the Northeast, be it South Indians taking part in, I can say that from my experience being a wrestler and not dominated sport coming from Kerala. So, how they look down on South Indian wrestlers. It's just a small instance, but I looked the part. I am brown screened. I can pass off as a North Indian, but it's not the same for very visibly different sports persons. I'm talking about Northeast athletes. Having said that, our Northeast athletes are the ones in many sport that dominate the sport, but still they don't have that kind of a respect outside of that playing. For instance, if you take football, we have a lot of footballers who are the driving force, we are in the Indian football team now, but their relevance remain in that 90 minutes of play and in that 90 yards or so of the playing field beyond that. So these are underlying issues that is happening in Indian sport. And beyond the sporting circle, there are a lot of social injustices, political injustices happening related not just to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now suffering has climbed up to epic proportions. People are dying on the road. But before that, say for instance, political targeting of the students that happened end of last year, the Delhi program that happened, the violence that happened. So we have sports persons, for instance, someone like Virat Kohli or someone like Virinder Sehwag, who have tremendous reach among the masses, who have that cloud to sway not just people's minds, but also sway even policymakers that way, even people in power, because that's the kind of cloud that sport like cricket has in India. We consider them as demigods, but they remain silent. They live in their own bubble of sorts and they are completely happy with being around their own vested interests, pushing messages for their own vested interests, like for instance, business interests or endorsements or even social messages which are safe. So that's the story in India. So for example, like you very rightly brought up, because we're talking here in a sense also about not just the institutional or systemic racism that we see in America and how those elements play out in the Indian context, but we're also talking about specifically police brutality. And the role of this uniformed sort of agents of the state and state sort of state sponsored in that sense oppression, you know, and directly. So both in the context of Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as Jamia Miliya Isamnya, we found that there were clear sort of violations in terms of, I mean, in however many years since our existence as an independent country, how many instances or instances can you remember of the police marching into a university campus with, you know, weapons of whatever sort, tear gas, lattes, all of that, and openly attacking students and evidence of which was caught on CCTV camera, et cetera, et cetera. And these cases are also in court at the highest level in the country. And we also find that, so this pandemic and the kind of shroud that is its kind of put over all of us has then allowed these forces to continue their work because so much of the media attention, the world's attention is all on this virus and how it's spreading and impacting various sections of society. So, while on the one hand, you're saying that the entire country is uniting against or uniting in an effort to mitigate the effects of this virus. On the other hand, student activists, students, intellectuals, professors, et cetera, et cetera, are being rounded up, being sent to jail. Due processes are not being followed or ways of being found around those new processes simply because everyone is being told to stay home. So, extremely complex challenges and just a few, in fact, just a few weeks or months previously, we found a spate of such, of course not with the level of brutality and one, I suppose, distinction is that the level of militarization of the police. In India, except in the state of Kashmir, is far less than what you see, you know, for urban police forces in high density, high population areas living in the United States. I mean, they have almost, you know, high caliber weapons and tanks almost. Yeah, it's, and that kind of military hardware facing a bunch of, well, people armed or equipped with sticks and stones. So, there are all of these things that are also happening. So, this whole thing of targeting people in India or communities in India that appear like Chinese, for example. Yeah. Right? It was a regular thing where they were racist or racial slurs were used for them. People were physically attacked, you know, and this all over the country, whether it's in cities like Bangalore or Delhi or Bombay. In fact, one of the few athletes who spoke out against this was Sunil Chaitri, who is the captain of the Indian football team. He was talking about people from the Northeast and literally, I mean, here's one more similarity. Sorry, I'm going on and on, but black people in America are saying, don't kill us, you know, like walking on the street, going to do whatever it is that I'm doing. Shouldn't be a reason for me to get killed. And it's quite similar in that sense here, where the reaction over there to it is, yeah, don't get killed, sure, but look at where all the crime happens. Look at, you know, who are the perpetrators of all this, all the crime. Of course, you will be pulled up at a routine traffic stop, pulled out of your car, shoved onto the street and manhandled, cuffed, etc. So many, in fact, so many multiple white women have come out with accounts of how their partners who they were driving with in a car at various times in their lives have been treated at these traffic stops versus how those women in the same situation were treated themselves. So it's something very similar to what's happening in India where at a basic level, people from the Northeast or people who belong to a certain ethnicity are repeatedly asked to prove how they are even Indian. So going back to something Sidhan said about virus being a shroud or a shield for these activities to happen on the side and we are not getting enough attention or people are not understanding what is happening on the side. But we can't justify our political and social inertness as a society. I mean, because sports persons also is part of that society and it reflects what how we are. So when all these issues were happening in the JNU or when the violence was happening in Delhi and all that people will live next to the JNU. Also, if it doesn't affect their lives, they don't care. So if it's not their son who is getting lathi charged by the police inside the campus and it doesn't matter for them. So and I've heard it from people I live right next to the JNU and I've heard it from people from the from the neighborhood. They say about how these students are always unhappy and creating problems and all that without realizing what is the issue that is happening. Why they are standing up and why it's important for for for education to to be free and why why the society should needs free thinkers because this is an attack attack on democracy. Why are killing education and free thinking and the capability of standing up and understanding the rights. So that is the basic thing that they're targeting, which which to a large extent is is not there in the US. That's why this is I mean, people are rightfully calling. In fact, in newsflicks last day, we had a video also running. It's it's not it's not a riot. It's a revolution that is happening. That's what that's what people in the US are saying people who are involved. Actually, what you're saying Leslie is like also very appropriate. Just in terms of purely in terms of like the kind of posts that certain athletes are doing where they are not just asking people to speak up but also asking them to understand their privilege when they're speaking up. It's like they're asking why it's not a privilege. It's it's a right. It's it's a privilege. Yeah, African American athletes are telling their white counterparts to educate themselves and speak up not because they just need to speak up but also understand the situation that they live in because of just the color of their skin is so different from someone else's. And very often, even in India, like we don't understand that just the concept of how privileged certain people are and how they're treated differently by law enforcement agencies just because of the way they look. It's I mean, I have like a very simple experience of this when I was in this was just a brief bit where I was working on a short film in Hyderabad and there's this festival called Batakumma that happens. Okay, Batakumma is actually a rural festival has been appropriated by the government of Telangana. And now it's like the Mardi Gras of the state. So there was a friend of mine who is he's he's a schedule class student who's studying at Usmania University a PhD student. And he wanted to go and his PhD thesis he was exploring the idea of doing this. This appropriation of a rural festival into the urban consciousness. And he wanted to go and just shoot some pictures at Batakumma. But he wanted to take me because he said if I take you, then I'll probably get to breathe through and go through right till the chief minister. What do you mean, like why would you assume that he's like just because of where you walk and the way you talk. Like if the policeman stops you, you're going to be like a minute. Why, why, whereas if he stops me, I just turn around and walk away. And it really opens your head a little bit about just this idea of privilege, which is I think something that is being questioned now and different ways in the US. And I hope that athletes in India also recognize that in the US also. Yeah, it's not the color of the skin that matters there because yesterday Michael Jordan spoke up and Jordan is the greatest of all time. Jordan's show is doing amazing numbers on Netflix at the moment. But he was one person who never stood up when he had that kind of a platform when he was on at his peak while playing basketball. Never, not even a single issue, social issue, political issue, nothing, zero. So, and here he comes out suddenly. So first thing you when I see that is you question is motive. Maybe it's to promote his show. I don't know what, why is he aware now, right now, suddenly, or maybe sitting at home and he is suddenly is conscious as ever, you know, whatever. But so, and here is a black athlete who represented that race at the IS level, Olympic gold medalist, five times, six times NBA champion, considered one of the greatest, or if not the greatest possible player in the world. He never used his platform at all. And you, I mean, I would never do that, but there are many people who have compared him to Muhammad Ali. And, and Muhammad Ali represents that athlete who lost his best years because he stood up for something that he believed in. He probably would have been, I mean, there's no question about his greatness in the boxing ring, but he lost his best years because he never wanted to be roughly was against the wall. So, when athletes speak up, athletes like Naomi Osaka or the young athletes go off. They have a lot to lose as well, because we remember, I mean, we remember calling Kafeinik, he started off the kneeling down protest when national anthems were happening in the NFL. And San Francisco's 49ers various club, and they next season they removed him and after that he has not gotten a contract in the NFL. And ironically, yesterday, the owner of 49ers, he came out saying that he's donating so much of dollars in the fight against systemic racism. Twitter obviously went after him. He said, we don't need your money. So, I mean, I don't know if this is a disagreement or what, but like, again, none of us know Michael Jordan and can't really speak too much about his personal innovations. But we understand the system, right? It's the sporting system, the business of sport that's governing a lot of things. No, fair enough, fair enough. But like, for what my understanding of it is two things. One is, of course, speaking out about issues that affect you and your community, if you are a leader in that community is important. But how you do that can come in multiple ways. And I don't think that, in my opinion, that point calling out a black athlete, no matter what their greatness or their influence may or may not have been, in this context is very different from what Vero was talking about earlier about those of us who don't belong to minority communities and the privileges that we enjoy and the impact that it has when non-minorities or majorities or in this case white people, white athletes come out and take a stand and show solidarity. One thing that has come out over the past and, you know, when Michael Jordan started playing basketball or became a professional, it has to be said that things were very different in the US than they are today, you know. So economic emancipation, right? Creating this now Michael Jordan is a millionaire several hundred times over probably. He has, the Jordan brand is one of the biggest sportswear brands in the world. He made a ten-episode advert on Netflix. Yeah, so no, you like what he does, what he does, that's one part. But what the impact of that may or may not have done to empower his community, we cannot effectively comment on from where we are sitting probably, right? And the fact that like Jordan did manage to create this very large financial empire for himself is a model that then some black athletes have continued to follow, you know. You look at the guys who are at the top of and the NBA in many ways because it's so driven and so largely sort of manned by minority community athletes, increasingly now imports from countries other than the US and a very large chunk of African Americans. So, you know, all of them now are investing the millions of dollars that they get in salaries in creating wider systems and networks that allow more people from various communities to take these stands to just have the economic freedom to even think about things beyond what impacts you personally. So that is, I mean, maybe a small distinction and that's why it's so much more striking when you look at the Indian context and you examine where some of our greatest athletes come from, our most popular athletes, our most financially independent athletes, they happen to all be cricketers, which is, you know, again, we can talk at length about the systemic racism or institutional sort of biases that pervade the cricket system as well and how various people are treated in that system based on where they come from, how they speak. You know, if you have a middle class upbringing like Sachin Tendulkar, you are kind of left alone to work on your sport and do all of that, but you also elevated to this status of like, let's say, demigod, you know. Rise of Tendulkar had another factor playing in it also, which is deeply rooted in how cricket is controlled by Apakas. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to go very much further than to compare the two, Kamli and Sachin Tendulkar who came up through this in the same system. Many people argued at that time when these guys were youngsters, these guys were teenagers that Kamli was the more talented, the more explosive, the more so many charismatic of the two and undoubtedly at least in terms of personal charisma or personality, Kamli was. He was much more spoken, you know, he was much more flashy in terms of his style and he said things. Whether you agree with his stand or not is a secondary matter, but at least he said things. People blame him for his downfall, but I would say cricket system failed him. So, I mean, at a deeper level. Yeah, I mean, after that 1996 World Cup situation, even the fans turned against him. Yeah, and it was not his fault. Of course not, but one guy, probably and unsurprisingly the darkest skinned guy on the team, takes the entire blame for what is a team sort of collapse, whatever, you know. And at that point, how many of his brethren, his compatriots, his friends in the dressing room stood up for him. I mean, we're talking about Kamli, but I was growing up in a small town in Jharkhand and I remember at that point in time, whenever India played Pakistan, the immediate question used to be, how will Azhar play today? Like, which is, I mean, like, it's, I'm sorry, but it's... Yeah, I know. So it's, yeah, fair enough, man, and it's undoubtedly like, you know, you have these conversations, especially like Leslie would say in North India, right? Yeah. Like, just the pervasiveness of this casual racism is so absolute. Absolutely. Like a Punjabi guy was saying this the other day, everyone south of Bombay is a Madrasi. Bombay is a Madrasi, yeah. And like, are you Marwadi or Bani? We don't have any respect for each other. You know, so this is, and then this goes into then, like, if you happen to look like, or belong to a different ethnicity altogether, then there's no... Then it's magnified. I mean, then you straight up the racist slurs come out, the epithets come out, and like, do you look at it? And yet we sit and we deny the existence of racism in our society. But that's so quick. No, we are a bunch of racist countries and we don't realize it because we have the mask of brown skin. So we, well, how can we be racist because we are already black or brown? Brown skin and the same, and a shared colonial past. So whenever we are accused of being racist ourselves, we are like, no, but how can we be racist? I don't know. White man has ruled us, you know. We need to get whitey off our back as well. And all of these things. And like, I mean, simple actual facts, like how now in the sport of football, we, there's a long history of, especially from Nigeria, several players being imported or coming into play for our football clubs over the years. And many of them have been the most, like sort of the crowds love them. They score the most amount of goals. I mean, we were just talking yesterday about the 1996-97, ACT Mills football team has won the first edition of the National Football League. And Stephen, who is a Nigerian former footballer now. And it was one of the rare seasons when an Indian striker finished on top of the scoring charts that Baichung got 14 goals that season. But Stephen was an amazing player and like his role in that team was central to how they managed to be the dominant side for that season, winning pretty much everything. But from the crowd, the kind of reception, response that African players, that black players get. I mean, it's nothing short of... I mean, also in just the way, like, I mean, whenever you talk to, again, like, I don't want to shame anyone. But just when you talk to coaches or scouts or managers, the way they talk about, like, players from different ethnicities and the way they play, it's just like, it's like, yeah, he's from here, so he will play like this. They are strong and built. And he's from here. They are very calm demeanors. Like, you know, like, this is racism. I mean, there is no other way to describe this. So, and such stereotyping is what is happening when these police pull out. And they are using tasers and all now. I was seeing some videos in the morning. Some guns and they are just sitting in the car. You stop and the two kids, 20-year-olds, they were coming from a protest and they stopped them, asked them questions. They don't want to talk to the police because they know what is coming next. They chase him down and then within the car itself, they're just... So that's not done. That's not how... So why is it happening? Because you have a profile in your mind and the skin is black. So I mean, straight, easy target. So, and in our context, it's just the problem is magnified because A, the level of poverty that we have here is far more absolute than what the United States is facing. The level of institutional systemic oppression where they have had it for 400 years, we have had it for thousands, ever since this whole structure of caste came into existence. So it's in our, in many ways, it's in our DNA and so the fight is that much harder but also the consequences are that much harder. And yet we find that people like us who are, have gone through the best in terms of what the education system of this country can offer in terms of jobs, in terms of just how we live our lives. We find it hard to educate ourselves to be more sensitive, to be more aware and to take a stand when it comes down to taking a stand because if you don't stand for anything at the end of the day, how many cars you have parked in your driveway, isn't it going to mean anything? That's the point when you mentioned earlier about economic independence of black athletes and how they are using it. So in our country, there's no culture as such about giving it back to the society except if it's a campaign that gives you some kind of PR brownie points. That's how bad it is over here. So be it middle-class, normal professionals living in Delhi, not acknowledging things that are happening, not doing their bit or not standing up, or be it our elite athletes, our sporting heroes, someone like the multi-millionaire Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni. It's the same. It's some kind of, I don't know, cultural backwardness or whatever, societal backwardness or whatever because we are all selfish and live in our silos, in our locked-up societies. I don't know how India has come about to such a situation. I mean, it's... I'm again, I mean, I'm not going to fully agree with what you're saying about athletes not giving back to society because there are athletes. Of course, there are. Dilip Turkey, for example, a man who's been capped for India by someone else in hockey. He's gone and he's done something for the area that he comes from. And he's done it in different ways. He's had to get into the system to be able to deliver back to his community. So there are athletes. There's a... Maybe you can elaborate on this, but there's a really interesting sort of comparative there Dilip was also a member of parliament as is Sachin, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, again, this is... Again, I don't want to generalize after having said that I won't generalize but I think it has got something to do with what kind of community you come from and how connected you are to it. When you're growing up, I guess, as a middle-class kid in Bombay, you're giving back to the community just in terms of like, hey, let's make a cricket academy or something of that. Whereas for someone like Dilip Turkey, it's not just about that. He understands the struggles that he grew up facing. So when he's giving back to the community, it's not just why are the medium of sport that I want to make more hockey players for India. It's also that he understands what this hockey, just playing hockey, just the facility he can represent, just the ambition this can show to any kid in Sundargarh growing up. It's also just... I mean, perhaps the difference. Generalization, that is perhaps a difference but also such a generalization is impossible because when we take into account another member of parliament, Mary Kom, who is from the Northeast. I knew that. No, so it's... how opaque and... insensitive she has become. And she has come up the hard way. No question or no taking away the hardships that he has suffered coming up but what she is doing about a lot of open things that are happening in the Northeast, I mean, we all know. So it's not the middle class upbringing? Again, let's... I mean, we do often call people out and take specific examples and names and stuff like that. Having been to Mary Kom's boxing academy in FAL, for example, like these, the contradictions in her personality and because she's a public figure, I guess, we often discuss public figures and their roles in society. And she's a parliamentarian, so even more so. A parliamentarian representing a region of this country that has been again ignored, whether it's in terms of economically... Yeah, and because of the fact that ours is a system of representational democracy and where the number of seats in parliament you get is based on how populist your state is. Therefore, if you come from Manipur where you only have a few lakh people, you have very few members of parliament and therefore the stories from the Northeast don't get told to the country at the highest level decision-making body. Right? So the contradictions in terms of Mary Kom's support for the Bhartijanta Party and the stand that she has taken in the context of this ruling party is essentially what seems to be a lust or a thirst or a desire to keep these guys on her team so that she continues to get the support that she gets from the state. Now, if you look at the sponsors that her boxing academy have, for example, many of them are either public sector or directly the government itself. Right? And now what it's having an impact on is that several kids I don't know the exact number of kids that live and train at this academy but there's no doubt that in that small ecosystem the lives of these few kids who do get access to it are completely transformed. We met some new recruits there who were just about joined and for them this was kind of an annual day celebration that they have. And we met some new kids and we saw how, kind of, what their aid, how they were dressed, how they spoke, the kind of confidence or whatever they demonstrated and versus kids who had been there for some time, some of them had gone on to compete at the national level, etc. Both boys and girls and how sort of their whole vibe. So you can tell that it's transformational work that is happening in places like this. So these contradictions are very hard to kind of figure out also and wrap our heads around it. It's also an understanding of how deep do you want to get your hands dirty. It's just something as simple as that. While I'm saying all, like, I have a huge amount of respect for Dilip Terqi and I mean, whenever I'm around him, I can't say anything, like Leslie can tell you this. But the truth is, he got his hands dirty. Like he went in, he got into the BJD, he's fought elections. He's like tried to influence policy from that level. He's become influential to a level where he has now realized that, hey, you know what, we've also got the support of the Odisha government. So let's do something in Sundargarh. All these things, like you have to get him, get your hands dirty and do that. Another truth that seems to emerge out of this is that the Lord, the entire burden of this awakening or this fight, goes back on to the same people that are the most affected by it. Absolutely. Yes. Which is kind of like... Like immediately, like... Yeah. So wherever you want to see, you can talk about Dilip Terqi, Mary Kom, we have so many friends in football who are small or big, who have the possibility to do as much as they can. We do it in our communities a little bit. We don't... In Maharaj's case, we had... Yeah, absolutely. He's played for India. I mean, one of the most recognisable football players again in this country. Not that there are very many, but Maharaj is distinctive, man. He's got now that flowing pure that he's got. He's at an ISL club. So his picture and everything is all over the place. He's accomplished or well, getting to becoming an accomplished coach. And yet, when he was going to see his ailing mother in Srinagar a few days ago, the police picked him up and locked him up without any conversation, without asking any questions. Of course, now because Maharaj within the sphere of things is an influential person. So this mistake was corrective. Right? And the local DCP or whoever it was, then he issued him a pass and allowed him to go and see his mother. But this is a person who has a voice who is an athlete and a recognized athlete. That's the point, the athlete's voice. That's why athletes' voices are important because it reaches a larger audience. I mean, it has a global impact when an athlete stands up or deals down. So again, I mean, I'm sorry. I don't want to digress or like I want to bring this back to just the fact that we expect people from minority communities and do whatever development work that needs to be done. Right? Like we expect Dilip Turki to go back and do that in Sendergarh. We expect Mary Koon to do this. We expect Maharaj to do this in Kashmir. But unless they don't or they don't take the initiative, the system doesn't seem to care. Like, I mean, I can find this truth for Jharkhand where we had a great hockey player. Unfortunately, when he was playing, there was no Indian system. There was no clear-cut infrastructure providing mechanism. And so Jharkhand hockey has languished behind for years and years and years. And till some player from Kunti goes back and says, you know what, I'll start because there are no male hockey players anymore from Kunti. Till then, hockey India is not going to be interested. There's no center there. What are we talking about? There is no other athlete who's going to go there and do anything because we expect, we put the onus, the burden of development on the people who are being most affected by a lack of development itself. Which is essentially, I find, to be the conversation happening internationally also right now. Yeah, so it's exactly, but again, expectation is not for people from the minority go back. Expectation from our, the expectation that I have being a sports journalist and before that being a sports fan is for our sports persons or people with privilege to use I mean, excerpt things in their sphere of influence. It can be just one small locality that because that's what's happening in my home state Kerala. So the sports clubs over there, local sports clubs are where forefront in during the floods or during this pandemic in exerting their sphere of influence, their youth, the bank of youth to do relief work to help out the society in whatever ways possible. So that's how society grows, that's how it works. So that's the least expectation that I have and of course our stars have bigger sphere of influence. It's up to them to how to make use of that. Thanks very much guys for all your inputs. Of course this is a complex conversation it's a conversation that engages communities and should be engaging communities across the world at a time when we are debating some of, especially when we are debating some of the structures, the economic political structures that have led us to this point. So we'll keep this conversation going in different contexts. Of course it's a developing story, things are happening in the US as well, things are happening in India as well. So we will update you more on that but for now that does it for us. Thank you for watching NewsClick. Follow us at NewsClick Sports. It's our new Instagram handle which has all the updates on the stuff that we're getting up to and also wait for us to engage with our audience. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.