Those who follow Tennis must know the legendary tennis star, Martina Navratilova. An 18-time Grand Slam winner who has made millions of fans worldwide with her top-quality game has somehow turned into an anti-Hindu and, to some extent, anti-India gossip peddler post-retirement. Martina has been popping up in discussions around Hindus, India, and the BJP-led central government for quite some time, and it is mindboggling to see how much hate she has accumulated within her mind.
Notably, it is not limited to the rants but extends to support for the left-leaning liberals in India. How can one ignore her love and affection for donation fraud accused Rana Ayyub? Not to forget, the Enforcement Directorate had recently filed a charge sheet in the misappropriation of funds case where Ayyub was found misusing funds collected via donations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Martina and her poor grasp of democracy
However, Martina is in the news not because of her association with Rana Ayyub, but because of her poor understanding of how democracy works all the while claiming that she has been enamoured by India, the world’s largest democracy, and weighing in unsolicited opinions on every issue under the sun.
Recently, Martina was caught making a foot-in-the-mouth remark when she declared that the BJP did not get a majority to govern India. Countering a fact on how 300 million voters voted for PM Modi and BJP, Martina made an embarrassing remark saying that the 39 per cent vote that Modi got to become the prime minister of the country was not a majority.
While Martina may not need classes in math, she clearly needs one on how a democracy works and what constitutes a majority in a democratic system. But this is not enough. Martina has a long and storied history of making critical remarks against the Modi government and India, passing off her convictions shaped by her interactions with usual suspects as gospel as she continues the left-liberal propaganda of disparaging India internationally to discredit the BJP regime.
Martina went on a rant against India after the India-Pakistan T20 match
The tennis player condemned the Uttar Pradesh police for arresting students who cheered Pakistan’s win against India in the first Super 12 match of the ongoing T20 World Cup.
Navratilova reacted to a post where a Twitter user named Anjali Mehta (ex-army now a social activist as per her Twitter bio) tagged several sportspersons from across the globe to condemn the arrests being made in India of students who celebrated Pakistan’s win.
To this Navratilova expressed bewilderment. After another social media user shared a BBC report on the news, the tennis player Tweeted, “Didn’t realize cheering for a particular team was against the law?”
It is imperative to note that Pakistan has long sponsored terrorism in the valley, keeping the pot of “Kashmir liberation” boiling and deluding the locals into believing that secession from India could be a reality. As a consequence, many locals who are brainwashed with teachings of Islamic supremacism happily embrace terrorism, killing Hindus, whom they despise for being a kafir and idol worshipper. In October alone, Islamic terrorists backed by Pakistan have killed about 10 Hindu civilians.
India lost more than 110 security personnel fighting terrorism in Kashmir from the year 2019 to date.
Hence, if personalities like Navratilova wish to understand why supporting, cheering and bursting crackers for a country responsible for terrorism in India is a punishable offence, a short history class or flipping through a few reports apart from the likes of BBC and The Print might help.
Navratilova spreads fake news
On October 21, Navratilova took potshots at the BJP government in India on the basis of fake news peddled by CJ Werleman, an Islamism apologist profiled by Shekhar Gupta’s ThePrint.
In a tweet, she wrote, “Quite the democracy, eh? Trying to catch up to trump, I see. But then Modi and trump were pretty chummy from what I could see… will Modi speak up against this man and his rhetoric? I doubt it…”
Sadly, her comments were based on a piece of fake news, which was shared by columnist and ‘Islamophobia crusader’ CJ Werleman.
Martina and Rana – a curious bond
The first mention that we noticed where Martina hailed Rana Ayyub was in October 2021. She quoted columnist Grant Wyeth who had praised Rana Ayyub for her “courageous” reporting in India against the BJP-led central government. Martina deemed Rana a hero in her tweet.
In the next tweet from November 2021, Martina quoted Rana Ayyub, the “great journalist” herself, where she had shared a video of herself talking about the “problematic past of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” Martina praised Rana and called her ‘brave.’
In December 2021, Rana Ayyub claimed that she was sent a summon by the central government agencies because she gave an interview against the government to BBC. Again, Martina stepped in, questioned democracy in India, and wished her good luck.
In the following months, Martina and Rana Ayyub continued to have interactions with each other on social media. What was in public could be seen by the netizens, but no one knew if they had spoken in private.
Then on October 13, after months of social media interaction, Ayyub met Martina in person. As expected, Ms Ayyub was ecstatic meeting Martina, presumably because the optics of being in thick with a legendary Tennis would prop up her reputation sullied by her chronic support for the Islamists.
In all the comments that Martina received over meeting Ayyub, one reply caught our eyes. A Twitter user named Antithesis commented, “You are a gentle soul …I read somewhere how you gifted a pair of shoes to a Wimbledon qualifier (your first-round opponent, I think) … you have no idea what this Rana girl is doing back in India.”
To which Martina said, “I always try to do the right thing rather than the popular thing… Rana is fighting for fairness in India, which is no easy task for a Muslim and a woman on top of that.” Martina seems to be living in a paracosm or a parallel universe, where Rana Ayyub is doing something “fair” in India.
Martina and her “love” for India
If people believe that Martina started talking about the “problems” in India after getting in touch with Ayyub, that was not the case. She has been tweeting about India long before the October 2021 tweet about Rana. However, when we checked her track record in Tweets related to India, Hindus, and BJP, we noticed that she was highly influenced by the propaganda media houses that speak irrationally against India, Hindus, and BJP.
For instance, when we looked at the tweets from Martina mentioning India, it was all good until the BJP-led government came to power. Soon after, instance after instance, she started to notice reports that painted a bad picture of India.
When the JNU fiasco happened, where anti-India slogans were raised, for Martina, it was about the “attack on the Universities” and “dissent,” but she did not talk about if the slogans were right or wrong. “Bharat Tere Tukde Honge” can never be accepted by a true Indian or a true supporter of India. But anyway, we are not here to judge anyone, are we?
Martina hoped BJP did not come back to power
In April 2019, while the Lok Sabha elections were ongoing in India, Martina hoped for BJP’s defeat. In a tweet, she shared a Huffington Post article titled, “Patriotism Edges Out Progress As India Kicks Off World’s Largest Election- please India, do the right thing. We have enough Right Wing madness in the world- no more BJP!!!” But it did not happen. BJP came back with even more seats in Parliament.
Martina had no idea about the Kashmir Genocide of Hindus
On October 13, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri tagged Martina and asked if she was aware of the genocide and exodus of Hindus from Kashmir Valley. He said, “Would you like to stand up for the Kashmiri Hindu victims of the Kashmir Genocide. FYI, a 100% Hindu land doesn’t have any Hindus there because of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism? That would be true fairness.”
To his query, Martina denied having any knowledge about it. She said, “I don’t know anything about this particular thing. Is this going on now, or when? Of course, any kind of genocide is wrong, that goes without saying.”
For someone who claimed to be deeply in love with India, it is hard to believe that she was unaware of Kashmir. However, it might be because of the fact that she was relying on western media and propaganda outlets. Moreover, we would not be surprised if this were true that she has limited information about the pleas of Hindus suffering in Pakistan and other Islamic countries, given that she is friends with Rana Ayyub and likes. Her knowledge of Hindu issues presumably comes from an Islamist, which would obviously be biased in nature.
For a sportsperson of her stature, if she wants to get into politics and the problems of a country, it will be better if she tries to be unbiased and listen, read and learn about both sides. Relying on just one set of sources is not going to be in her favour for a long time, and she may lose credibility for good.
