NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleagues landed on Earth from the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft on 18 March 2025. In this context, a post is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claiming that Sunita Williams, in an interview with BBC News, said that during tough times in space, she turned to the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita for strength. It is alleged that after returning from space, she told journalists that when food and water were running out, she began eating and drinking less, drawing inspiration from the Hindu fasting month of Chaitra Navratri. She read the entire Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita, which gave her hope of returning to Earth. The post even claims that she intends to research the science behind the Vedas. Let’s verify the claim made in the post through this article.
Claim: Sunita Williams told the BBC that reading the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita while in space gave her strength and courage.
Fact: There is no evidence that Sunita Williams made such a statement in any interview with the BBC. The BBC has not published any interview or news report quoting her as saying this. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the viral claim, we conducted a keyword search on the internet but found no evidence that the BBC had published any such news report. There were no reports or interviews from the BBC supporting this claim.
According to a BBC news report (archived) published at the time of Sunita Williams’s return to Earth, NASA officials stated that her team would not be participating in a press conference after landing due to scheduled medical examinations.
Furthermore, in the interviews given by Sunita Williams and NASA officials to various media outlets (here, here, and here) during their time in space, she never mentioned anything about fasting during Chaitra Navratri.
According to media reports, Sunita Williams’s cousin, Falguni Pandya, stated that Williams took a Ganesha idol with her when she went to space in 2024. Additionally, during a media conference in 2013, Sunita Williams mentioned that she had taken a Ganesha idol, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads with her during her 2012 space mission.
Factly had previously debunked a similar claim, stating that Sunita Williams told the BBC that reading the Quran in space provided her with courage.
To sum up, the BBC did not publish any news report about Sunita Williams saying she was inspired by the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita while in space.
