Prominent former and present Indian cricketers, including Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, took to Twitter to express their views on the ongoing farmers' protests. These tweets were seen as a reply to the tweets by singer-songwriter Rihanna, climate activist Greta Thunberg along with many other US and UK lawmakers and celebrities.
Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Ravi Shastri, Anil Kumble, and Suresh Raina are among the well-known names from the Indian cricket fraternity who tweeted about the protests.
"India's sovereignty cannot be compromised. External forces can be spectators but not participants. Indians know India and should decide for India. Let's remain united as a nation," Sachin tweeted.
"Let us all stay united in this hour of disagreements. Farmers are an integral part of our country and I'm sure an amicable solution will be found between all parties to bring about peace and move forward together," Kohli said in a tweet.
The players, however, faced criticism from netizens.
"Why do this? Either stay neutral or stand with people instead of the fascist powers. After a lifetime of respect wealth fame do you really need to do this? Can't you turn down the PR request? What will they do? What's the fear? Have you also done some hanky Panky in the taxes?" wrote a user Sanjukta Basu in reply to Tendulkar.
"We know that you are busy with your parenting. You left your team to handle match for you child's birth we appreciate you as a father but where is the team unity? Where were you for all these days, just at least go and do your parenting well," wrote Kanimozhi Manoharan in reply to Virat Kohli's tweet.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Rihanna had posted a tweet in support of the farmers' protests. Rihanna shared a CNN report along with the tweet "Why aren't we talking about this?!". The 32-year-old Barbadian singer-actor has over 101 million followers on Twitter.