 Hello and let's talk about Naomi Osaka and women's tennis. The 22-year-old tennis player of Haitian-Japanese descent won her third Grand Slam at the US Open on Saturday, beating Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. Osaka's victory was a culmination of a fascinating campaign, both in terms of tennis and politics. In each of her seven matches, she wore a face mask with the name of a black American who had fallen victim to racism. George Floyd, of course, but also Breonna Taylor and Trayvon Martin and Tamey Rice. Long men and women whose lives were snuffed out by a brutal racist system. Naomi Osaka was taking a stand just as other sports persons, such as basketball players in the US, had done earlier. And it is a vital stand to make at this point, as killings have continued in the US even after the massive protests following the murder of George Floyd. But Osaka's political statements are also part of a traditional women's tennis of highlighting radical causes and struggling for it. A key part of this has also been the struggle for equal pay and prize money. We talked in news clicks, Leslie Xavier on these issues. Thank you, Leslie, for joining us. So we see Naomi Osaka's statements that were made during the force of the US Open. And this is, of course, part of also a global tradition, so to speak, a global practice that has been going on around the world. We've seen similar protests by basketball players in the United States, both the men, men and women's players, and also a number of sports persons other celebrities raising issues around Black Lives Matter, racial justice. But today, to go to another aspect specifically about Naomi Osaka and also women's tennis as a whole, we do know that there is a long tradition of women tennis players raising the key issues of the time standing in solidarity with protesters and definitely also using the support and the platform it provides to make some of these political points. So we'll talk a bit about this and especially about that in the context of women's tennis. So largely, if you look at it in tennis history, it has been the women and not the men. I mean, and that continues even now in this generation. So if you look at Black Lives Matter movement, it's not the... I mean, yeah, some of the men's players, two players have come out and spoken about it at large, but no one has explicitly took a stance like the one that was taken by Naomi Osaka. And we are talking about some superstars here who have a huge sway across fans, across brands, across society as a whole. So, I mean, someone like Roger Federer or Rafa Alnader, for instance. So that way, if you look back, if you go back into tennis history, the pro-touristry to start with every generation has had a Naomi Osaka of sorts. So let's get back to the 70s, late 60s, 70s where Billie Jean King was ruling the courts. And a tremendous player, but a pioneer in the game itself because she was one of the first persons who was very vocal about... And it was in a very early stage for women's tennis as women's professional tennis. And she was very vocal about equal-play status for both men and women. And she pushed for it right through both us in the capacity as a player, while as a player. And at the same time, later when she became an administrator and played a prominent role in the women's tennis association WTA, she pushed for it, she keeps continuing pushing for rights. And also at the same time, she was one of the first professional women athlete to come out as openly gay. And subsequently, she also was an activist for LGBTQ rights. And so here is a character who has transcended sport. Though we keep talking about her with tennis as an artistic saying that she fought for equal pain in the tennis realm. But she has been part of organizations which has worked outside as well. And also at the same time, tennis is but a reflection of what was happening in the feminist movement in the 70s. If you look at it, the period was defined by such struggles in all walks of life. And Billie Jean King and her contemporaries, the women players of her time just carried it forward into their realm, into tennis. But of course, the establishment, there was, I mean, she faced odds. There was also a narrative being played about the selfish nature of demanding equal pay, which is always a narrative that's pushed across any labor movement for that matter, even now. And then trying to limit the fight that she represented into just the scope of tennis, which was again, when we look at it now with hindsight, it was not. And then the next generation, Martina Navratilova came, and she again was a abit activist for LGBTQ rights. She was also openly gay, and she also faced a lot of criticism in the tennis fraternity itself, people targeting her being caustic about her. And this was pre-social media era, so she probably was saved from a lot of, I mean, a storm that at least stays now. But even if you negate that aspect that it was a pre-internet and pre-social media era, there was a lot of attacks on Navratilova while she was a player, from rival fans to generally to patriarchal segment of tennis followers and people in the tennis establishment. And Serena came subsequently again, taking forward that fight for equal pay, which has yielded results now. And Serena also stood off late recently after she became a mother. She also stood for that, that rights of a woman tennis player, because earlier the two rules were such that women would dread taking a maternity break because they would lose their ranking points, and when they return, they would have to start from scratch. But then a couple of years back, the WTA changed that rule, and they introduced this aspect that women tennis player returning from a maternity break would retain a ranking points and also would get a wild card kind of entry into tournaments and into Grand Slams, where she can potentially be seeded if her ranking was high enough when she left in the first place. So that was a very progressive move by WTA. And of course Serena and a host of players were the reason for that, because they were very vocal about it. And understandably, I mean, it was very heartwarming to see that in this year's open conducted under lockdown, there were nine mothers who were part of the main draw, and three of them reached the quarter final stage, which was unprecedented for a Grand Slams. And then, of course, Serena Williams and Victoria Sarenka fought each other in the semi-finals and Sarenka reached the finals and got beaten by Osaka. So yeah, so this look at tennis as a whole across generation, there has always been women who have stood up and fought the system, fought for rights, fought for things larger than larger than what their sport is and the scope of the sport is. So this, I mean, this precedent was set possibly because their journey in sport itself is a huge struggle, starting from childhood possibly, and then it continued through their careers where they face different obstacles when they reach a certain stage. And it's also very clear that even when you reach the age stage, also, the struggle or the challenges are different, not necessarily what they face when they were a teenager training and coming up the ranks. So these struggles mold them to stand up for a larger course in life in general and using their professional standing and the platform that they receive being at any player for that course. And that's what happened with Osaka as well. And so in this context, of course, we, the struggle for equal pay and has actually been very central to the whole discussion. It's been going on for many years and tennis that way does seem notoriously conservative sport that way too. But what is happening with that right now if you could talk a bit about it because it has been a continuous demand for women players throughout many years and still, it seems quite far away. Or does it? No, it's not because in the last few years, things have gotten better. Things are moving in the right direction and some of the slams have, including Wimbledon, have brought the price money of the women almost on par with the men. And so parity is, I mean, now the understanding is there and it's a huge change for the sport in itself because of the, I mean, it's pretty clear that you use the politically correct word there that tennis is conservative. So across, I mean, it's not just when we talk about men and women, it's also there across race as well because if you look at tennis and the demography of tennis players, the top 200, top 300 players, you can just count on your fingers how many black players would be there, how many brown players would be there. So it's a rich man's sport, it's a white man's sport, white man and white women's sport. And so it's that way tennis has not cracked the race barrier, but they seem to have cracked the gender barrier that way because now more and more women are benefiting from the momentum that this fight for equal pay gathered over generations. And it was a fight that lasted generations, but then it's reached a stage where things are better. So when Naomi Osaka stands up with the mask on her face, presenting a case for a larger case that she believes in, she's taken note of and she's been taken seriously and because of the stature that she has gained, being a woman's tennis player with all the rights that being a woman's tennis player gives her account. And in this context, finally, a quick question about India itself, has any of this, what do you call, is any of this being even reflected in the Indian tennis circuit because actually now there's very little talk about, or you hear very little about Indian tennis these days and what is a very quick look at the scenario there? So Sumit Nagal was there in the main draw of the US Open this year. I mean, if you look at Indians who featured in the US Open, Nagal played and second round he lost to Dominic Piem, the eventual champion. And Rohan Bopanna played the doubles draw and second round he lost as well. And so that's more or less sums up where Indian tennis stands in the global scheme of things. He has best doubles player, not progressing beyond the second round, the third round and India's best singles player not progressing beyond the second round. Having said that, that has been the story for the last 15 years or so where at the slams we have been exposed, except for the occasions when a doubles player has clicked for Neanderthals or for Sanya Mirza. Of course, the partners also matter in that case. As far as the larger global movement, whether it touches the Indian circuit, in the sense as a professional setup in tennis over here in India, it's not reached a stage where it would matter because in any case our players at the national level, our players are at best semi pro. You can't even call them that because they're dependent on a lot of the federation or the organizers or all the small sponsors that they get. If being professional is, the idea of being professional is earning enough to sustain yourself on tour and train and get better and compete at the various tournaments, then we have not reached there yet. So the support from the federation and the government for taking these players to competitions, it's there. But as far as making a career out of the sport, we have to break into that upper strata of tennis which we haven't yet. And there are many factors to it. One quick factor that I would like to mention now that we have spoken about India is that we lose our talent to Ivy League. So it's a very tricky scene there because in the US, if you look at it, none of the US tennis players go to college because college what happens is that you can't turn pro if you're in college. That's the rule of NCAA. So if for any of the US players, upcoming US players, 15 years, 16 years old gets into college, then you or she stands to lose five, six years of valuable time where she can grow in the pro circuit. So tennis is such a sport. While we opt to go to college because for us that's a window to a parallel, I mean a tangential career path. So we have lost a lot of talent on that. And even tennis players who have stuck to the game post that someone like Somdev Devverman was India number one 10 years back. He made it to the main row of a few Grand Slams as well. And Somdev was NCAA champion. So but then he came out of college and he was nowhere in the world too. So you can understand where that where that loss happens to Indian tennis. It's just an observation and a side note to this. But the main point about this discussion was surrounding women players and how they have always stood up. And so adding to that discussion, I would like to mention Victoria Asaranka, the runner up at the US Open and the struggle that she, the personal struggle that she went through and her she reaching the final in itself is a huge victory. She was in the middle of a custody battle. She had to leave the professional tour because of that. Because she the court ordered that she couldn't leave California with the son, young son, two year old son. So she decided not to travel around for competitions and stick on till court decides otherwise. And then now a favorable ruling has come. So she has gotten back into competing. So it just sort of sheds light on how the state of women, I mean, I mean, we are not talking about a commoner here. We are talking about a very, I mean, a Grand Slam champion and an elite athlete, one of the top players in at one point, one of the top players in the world. And she's still acid proven by the way she reached the final this time. And no one is immune to the patriarchal setup that's the hallmark of our society. So breaking that in itself is a big fight. And my reckoning is that these pioneering women players, and I would call Osaka also a pioneer for what she did. They are forced to do these things because they are fighting the system right from the workbook. Thank you so much. Our next segment is on the Delhi riots groups. In a major development, activist Umar Khalid has been arrested in connection with the riots and more arrests are likely in the next few days. Over the weekend, we got to know that CPIM General Secretary Sitaram Yachuri noted academic Jyothi Ghosh and activists Yoga and Riyadh were among those named in disclosure statements that were part of supplementary charge sheet as part of the probe. This riots probe by the Delhi police is very symbolic of India today. What should have been an investigation into the deaths of over 50 people has become an investigation into those who protested the CAA, NPR and NRC and some kind of grand conspiracy they were all part of. We are no closer to knowing who was responsible for the deaths. We don't see signs of BJP leaders who made hate speeches being punished. What we do see is students and activists being hunted down and painted out to be archfiends. We talked to Sitaram Yachuri on some of these issues. Here is what you had to say. What is your response to this and what do you think is the logic of the Delhi police in making these kind of allegations and these kinds of statements? Well, honestly, you can't see any logic. There is no logic in this at all. Now we will have to wait and see how they are going to establish this link between peaceful protests against the CAA and NRC and NPR with what they call Delhi riots but it was actually Delhi communal violence. Now in that communal violence, 56 of 53 people officially died. Now who is responsible for that? Any charge sheets? If you are investigating that, that ought to have been your first priority, nothing of that sort. Then before this violence took place, there were these hate speeches, incendiary hate speeches by union cabinet minister, by Delhi BJP leader and according to that timetable announced by them, this violence began. Any charge sheet on that hate speeches? None. So what is the police investigating? And that is where the entire political conspiracy aspect comes in. The police is acting directly under directions from the union home ministry and there is a political motivation to this. It is not really the question of delivering justice, establishing the truth but to actually act their political right. So this is what it appears from this very clearly. And also when they say that no, no, he has not been charge sheeted and the defense that they are giving. Now the question is how did this thing come into the public domain? How did this thing appear? And this is the methodology and they apply everywhere. Names appear in somebody else's statement so claimed, of aggregated, whatever it is. And on that basis, the procure orders for, you know, framing charges and then they frame and then people are arrested under UAPA etc. This is the way that Bhima Kori's own thing proceeded. This is the way the other things are happening. So I mean, this is a clear cut. It's a political issue. It is a state sponsored political maneuver, manipulation, a conspiracy if it so be. So that is what it is. So I mean, that is not going to stop us from exercising our right to peacefully protest on what we think are violations for the constitution. And it's not only my right, it's my duty to protect the Indian constitution. And that is something we'll do. And that's why I keep reminding them they should learn that I belong to that generation that fought the emergency. We re-established democracy in the country because of which they are also in government. And therefore, you understand before that we'll fight this also. So in this context, you mentioned, of course, the Elgar Parishad case, but specifically with reference to the daily riots, it's clear over the past few months that like you said, it's entirely been about the anti-CA and NRC protests and nothing to do about the violence. So is this the government trying to send out a message to the people at large that, you know, if you protest this kind, is it like it just has a whole investigation become a way to threaten free speech and protests? Of course, this is the way I'm trying to intimidate. That's what they're doing. Any dissent against this government is tantamount to their description of being anti-national. And therefore, the most draconian of measures like the UAPA, the NSA, the Sedition Act, they're all invoked. That is curbing of dissent. This is an outright large-scale authoritarian assault. And this assault is being mounted against Indian democracy and against the Indian constitution itself. And that is something that is just not acceptable. That's all. We have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news on the country and the world. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.