How political influencers like Dhruv Rathee took on BJP at its own game

These social media influencers captured eyeballs as they aggressively pushed narratives against the blind adoration of Modi followers, making the ruling dispensation uneasy and the liberals hopeful. Among them, 29-year-old YouTube sensation Dhruv Rathee, who as on June 2, has 21 million YouTube subscribers, just two million short of Modi’s 23 million, stood out.

Nehru vs Modi

When Modi embarked on a 45-hour meditation in Kanniyakumari, Tamil Nadu on Thursday (May 30) evening, Rathee posted a video on his YouTube channel, demolishing the Prime Minister's recent claim at an election rally that ‘When India speaks, the whole world listens’.

The entire video, which compares India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru with Modi, tells viewers that the BJP’s ‘ninja technique’ of using this phrase to make India’s heart swell with pride about our standing on the international stage, is a complete sham.

The video, titled Is India the Vishwaguru | PM Modi vs PM Nehru, strives to shatter this boast as nothing but ‘lies’ circulated by WhatsApp and ‘pro-government media’. The video gets to what it claims the ‘real truth’ through news clips and recordings from the past and suggests that it was not Modi who changed India’s image in the world but Nehru. How Nehru with his non-aligned policy was admired by world leaders, and how the statesman, much before Modi, introduced yoga to world musicians like Yehudi Menuhin.

The video went on to get 10 million views on YouTube and 1 million likes.

Media alternative?

Rathee, a mechanical engineer, started out as a travel vlogger. He was drawn to politics in 2011 after the Anna Hazare protests and slowly moved from making travel videos to creating political stories. YouTuber Rathee's popularity has grown over the years with journalists interviewing him about "compromised" state of Indian media back in the 2019 national elections.

Viewed as ‘Indian PM’s most formidable critic’, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rathee's YouTube attacks on Modi got more traction than any Opposition leader could possibly manage.

Rathee sees himself as a “replacement” for traditional media that doesn’t seem to have an independent, unbiased voice any longer. “Traditional media has been hijacked by the government. People see me as a replacement,” he told TV channel France 24.

Scrolling through Rathee’s YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp videos suggests most of them since February revolve around Modi. The 'YouTube educator', as he calls himself, urges people not be “fooled” by Modi, even implying that the latter is the megalomaniacal character Joker in Batman. He appeals to people not to be “brainwashed” by BJP’s agenda and "lies" on WhatsApp.

Gaffe recorder

If Modi makes a gaffe (and there were plenty during this election campaign), there is bound to be a Dhruv Rathee video on it.

Be it Modi’s infamous mangalsutra remark against the Opposition, or that he has been sent down to earth by God, or that Mahatma Gandhi was not known in the world before Richard Attenborough’s movie, Rathee has a satirical take on it.

He strives to show the other picture of India, quoting figures on the rise of income inequality, how India fares poorly in the World Press Freedom index or how the number of people giving up their Indian citizenship is on the rise.

Clad in a collarless t-shirt, Rathee holds forth in a conversational manner, mingling his monologue with lots of graphics, news clips and recordings to add weight to his arguments.

Large team

It's not a one-man army. Rathee has a team of nearly 15 people including scriptwriters, researchers, fact-checkers working for him as he cannot “afford” to make a mistake. He also gets his content checked with a lawyer before posting it.

Hailing from Rohtak in Haryana, Dhruv’s father was an engineer who later moved to Delhi and Malaysia. Many members of his family are in the Indian Army, he has said in one of his videos.

Rathee, who moved to Germany to study mechanical engineering when he was just 17, is married to a German woman.

In many interviews, he has made it clear that he is not linked to any political party like the AAP.

Emergence of political influencers

The popularity of political influencers like Rathee, Arpit Sharma, Ranting Gola and Shambhav Sharma may have queered the pitch for the BJP during its election campaign. These influencers, some of them anti-BJP, were beating the saffron party at its own game, it seems.

They may or may not have had an impact on how people voted but they left an indelible mark on India’s political fabric.

In an interview with The Federal, Kunal Purohit, author of H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, said that dissenting voices like Ravish Kumar, Ajit Anjum, Akash Banerjee and Dhruv Rathee in this election have played a crucial role in destroying the perception that the BJP cannot be criticised.

“They demolished the fear that there will be repercussions if they spoke out against the ruling BJP government," Purohit said. "They shattered the myth of the invincibility of the government."

"Once Ravish and other senior journalists moved to YouTube and started doing critical reporting, Indians were seeing credible voices not just indulging in praise and flattery," Purohit added. "We also saw the rise of political influencers like Rathee and others critically and effectively analysing the government’s functioning.”

More effective than Opposition

Senior journalist Paranjoy Thakurta, who has his own YouTube channel Paranjoy Online, believes Rathee was more “effective than Opposition leaders” in calling out the “lies” of the ruling dispensation.

“Influencers like Rathee literally led the charge against the BJP. Even Rathee would not have imagined he would have become so popular. His videos which are like explainers are clearly effective,” he said.

Rathee gets mercilessly trolled by the Right Wing, who hate him, Thakurta said, adding that Rathee's wife gets rape threats.

Thakurta also believes the massive spread of social media platforms like YouTube and WhatsApp in India have played a big role in boosting Rathee’s popularity. While Google-owned YouTube claims to have 460 million subscribers in India, making the country its largest market, Meta-owned WhatsApp has 487.5 million users in the country.

Impact on the ground

A veteran political scientist, who was once part of 'Mood of the Nation' surveys conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), however, was unsure of the real impact of political influencers on the ground.

“Largely, it is liberals who want to listen to him and watch his videos. Rathee is just giving them proof of what they suspect is happening in the country," the political scientist told The Federal. "And, he presents it in a way that appeals to many people. Even those who are pro-Modi like his videos, whether they agree with him or not. He argues his point of view passionately, about how democracy has to be practised," he said.

"But, at the time of voting, I don’t know whether it would have made a difference. Whether these people actually even went out and voted. His fans were largely urban voters so it is difficult to predict,” said the political scientist.

However, he observed, Rathee and other political influencers are “important” in India’s political landscape for their “new interpretations” of issues.

“I particularly liked Rathee’s video on the electoral bond scam. It was a very good explainer,” he said. And dryly pointed out that in the 2014 and 2019 elections, it was the BJP which had dominated in this area, using technology to influence people.

One-sided narrative

Purohit also agreed that until recently, social media in India was dominated by a one-sided narrative. “Online spaces were dominated by the Right Wing Hindutva brigade. They were brazenly partisan to the BJP. Now, for the first time, we hear voices on behalf of the Opposition,” he said, pointing out that Rathee managed to successfully replicate the model the Right Wing had deployed to great effect.

A reason for Rathee’s reach is also because his videos fall under the 'explainer' genre that is so popular around the world, said Purohit. They break down issues for people, making is simple and easy to relate.

"Moreover, Rathee’s videos are well-packaged, not pedantic, and snappy with thumbnails, graphics and news clippings popping up. He has perfected the production game. And, he seems to have literally taken a leaf out of the Right Wing’s book,” said Purohit.

Rathee also released a spate of videos during the polls and his viewership peaked from February. A video he released in February, titled Is India becoming a dictatorship? seemed perfectly timed and notched up 25 million views.

BJP strikes back

On its part, the BJP, realising the growth and power of these influencers, sought to cultivate them, giving them awards. And the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister himself.

Ranveer Allahbadia (known on social media as 'BeerBiceps') was roped in to do a series of interviews with BJP politicians like Union Ministers S Jaishankar and Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Purohit agreed that influencers like Rathee may or may not have made an impact on the ground. If exit polls are to be believed, they did little to impact voting against the BJP. But Purohit felt that at least, these influencers truly recorded what is happening in the country, unlike the “traditional media which had completely absolved themselves of the responsibility”.

Censorship, curtailment

These videos don't always have a smooth sail. In May, a lawyer in Maharashtra was booked for allegedly sharing a video of Rathee that criticised Modi, around the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

Whenever asked how his channel has escaped being shut down by the ruling BJP, Rathee admits he lives with that thought all the time.

And, as Purohit pointed out, if the Indian Broadcast Bill gets passed, it will probably become easier for the government to clamp down on critical voices like Rathee. Then, will people wake up to the country's democracy being in danger as Rathee had warned?

Pro-BJP influencers

On the other side of the spectrum from Rathee are pro-BJP YouTube influencers like Shambhav Sharma, with 263,000 subscribers. Besides interviewing BJP spokespersons and making digs at Opposition leaders and Sam Pitroda after the exit polls, he often targets Rathee in his videos.

One video, titled Dear Dhruv Rathee, Democracy isn’t dead, is meant to be a “compelling” response to Rathee's video on dictatorship in India. Sharma, taking a "critical look" at the claims made about the erosion of democracy in the country, gives contrasting viewpoints "with factual analysis and touch of humour". He criticises Rathee’s “over-simplfied” approach, which “overlooks the complexities of Indian politics”.

On his Twitter handle, Sharma posted after the exit polls, “When BJP might win despite your efforts but you can still run your dictatorship propaganda for five more years.”

As the curtains come down on the polling process of the world’s biggest election jamboree, political influencers like 'Ranting Gola' are asking their viewers what they want to hear from them now. But, Gola promises to keep lashing out against any injustice.

The Federal spoke at length with political influencer Arpit Sharma. Edited excerpts:

How did a chartered accountant get into the influencer space?

When the lockdown hit us in 2020, when Instagram and Twitter were booming, I started making spoofs on Indian media and questioning government. Soon, one of my videos, MLA Stock Exchange, was retweeted by Dr Kumar Vishwas and another video on GST was shared by Dhruv (Rathee).

That is when I realised that people want to hear my views and I can raise important issues with a tinge of satire.

What motivates you to keep creating content?

It’s been almost three years as a content creator. However, I have never been consistent until these elections.

But the very fact that I love my country and care for my people motivates me to question government policies and raise important issues that people want addressed on social media.

Why are we popular? One of the reasons is the lack of credibility of Indian mainstream media. When national TV channels did not cover Manipur, people messaged and applauded me when I shared back-to-back videos on Manipur. Similarly, I did during the protests by farmers and wrestlers.

How do you prepare your topics? How challenging is it to attract views?

Mostly, I keep an eye on Twitter to check what is trending and whether it would have any major impact on the people. I then delve into some facts and make it satirical so that when a young 24-25-year-old watches my video, he get those facts and also does not get bored.

Yes, it was challenging in the beginning to attract views but not anymore. If your content has weight, people will view it. My personal mantra which is associated with my identity on Instagram is to target the pro-establishment audience so that they can also hear my view.

So, I try to make the heading of my videos in such a way that it would look as if I am glorifying a particular leader but in reality it is all satire. But, I always try to be crisp, clear and non-abusive because I want my video to reach the grandmother of that 24-25-year-old.

Your most popular video?

The maximum views I have got is 14 million on a video I made before the third phase of elections targeting the women voters of India, where I addressed the Hathras rape, Bilkis Bano, Prajwal Revanna issues.

It was posted by Dhruv on his page. He liked that video and asked his team to edit it to make it more presentable. After that, my Mumbai and Delhi vote appeals have got 9 million views each.

Why did Dhruv Rathee become so popular?

The fact that he addressed issues in a way that most Opposition parties couldn’t do. They lacked the relatability factor. But when Dhruv explained the electoral bond scam, people related to it with facts.

Moreover, his commitment to risk his career and channel for the country became the talk of the town too. Many common myths propagated by the BJP’s IT cell were busted by him in his videos. So in a way, people suddenly had that another factual perspective to counter those myths and think.