Do we like Sachin Tendulkar?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent and on the right side, with a couple of contested moves: an online gaming ad and a 2021 post on the farmers' protest.
Tendulkar is the batsman a few generations of Indians grew up with, and he holds the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour. That honour is why a politician stood outside his Mumbai home in 2023 demanding he either drop an online gaming ad or hand it back. It's a fair sign of how high the bar is for him.
His rough patch came early. On India's 2001 tour of South Africa, match referee Mike Denness suspended six Indian players after the Port Elizabeth Test, and Tendulkar was accused of ball-tampering. India erupted, with effigies burnt and the matter raised in parliament. Denness and the ICC later clarified that Tendulkar was punished under Law 42.3 for not telling the umpires he had cleaned the seam, and Denness said “I can't use the words ball-tampering.”
On money, there are questions but no findings against him. In 2021 the Pandora Papers reporting named him as an owner of an offshore entity liquidated in 2016, and his side said the investment was legitimate and the proceeds declared in his tax returns. In an Indian tax tribunal ruling reported in October 2025, he was allowed a deduction of about Rs 1.77 crore after the tribunal held that his advertising income counted as acting work.
On the harm test, we searched for anything he has said about LGBTQ+ people, women or the climate and came up empty, so there's honestly no record either way. The two things on file are a February 2021 post during the farmers' protest and the gaming ad. The post said “Indians know India and should decide for India”, and was a reply to Rihanna and Greta Thunberg. Supporters read it as standing up for India and critics read it as backing the government. The 2023 gaming ad was objected to by MLA Bachchu Kadu, who claimed the games could harm young people; the article carries no response from Tendulkar.
He has also been on the receiving end of misuse of his name. In January 2024 he said a video of him promoting a gaming app was fake and asked people to report such videos, and an FIR was registered against the app. Earlier, he sued Australian bat maker Spartan over unpaid fees and the use of his image, and settled in 2020 with Spartan apologising and being barred from using his image.
The Rajya Sabha stint is the weak spot. Nominated in 2012, he was reported by PRS Legislative Research to have attended only around 5 to 15 per cent of sittings in sessions across 2016 and 2017, and in 2017 MP Naresh Agrawal raised a point of order about nominated members who don't turn up. The article has no response from Tendulkar. On the plus side, he donated his full pay and allowances, nearly Rs 90 lakh over six years, to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.