The Role of Dhruv Rathee in Indian Politics: A Look Back at 2013
In 2013, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was in the midst of its electoral campaign. The party was in dire need of individuals who could effectively utilize social media. While the AAP's social media team worked tirelessly through the night, it was essential for the party to maintain visibility in the eyes of the public.
To advance further, direct contact with the people was crucial. The world was rapidly changing, and political parties had to adapt their campaigning methods. It wasn't just about reaching out to voters in person anymore; soliciting votes through social media platforms became equally vital. Social media was being extensively utilized, reshaping the landscape of political engagement.
In light of these developments, at the end of 2013, Dhruv Rathee created a YouTube channel. He began uploading videos to facilitate easy understanding of the prevailing scenario. With consistent uploads, by 2014, the channel had garnered 1000 subscribers. On October 7, 2014, Dhruv Rathee uploaded a video titled "BJP Exposed". This video showcased half-truths and supported his party. Subsequently, on December 21, 2014, he created another video which he also shared on his Facebook, titled "AAP Rejuvenated".
Five years later, Kejriwal retweeted this video, emphasizing its importance. He urged viewers to subscribe to his channel.
The Emergence of Social Media in Political Campaigning.
The advent of social media has revolutionized the way political parties engage with the public. In the backdrop of the 2013 elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recognized the significance of having a strong social media presence. While traditional campaigning methods persisted, the AAP understood the need to adapt to the changing times.
As the world witnessed rapid transformation, political parties realized that connecting with voters required more than just physical outreach. Social media emerged as a powerful tool for soliciting votes and shaping public opinion. Recognizing this, Dhruv Rathee took the initiative to create a YouTube channel, providing a platform to disseminate information and engage with the audience directly.
Through his channel, Rathee effectively communicated the party's stance and countered opposing narratives. His videos garnered significant attention, with subscribers steadily increasing over time. Notably, a video titled "BJP Exposed" garnered widespread traction, shedding light on contentious issues and garnering support for the AAP.
In retrospect, the utilization of social media played a pivotal role in reshaping political campaigning strategies. It enabled parties to reach a wider audience and fostered direct engagement with voters. As demonstrated by Rathee's channel, social media platforms served as catalysts for political discourse, influencing public opinion and shaping electoral outcomes.
Dhruv Rathee: A Hero on Social Media
No one in the world of social media is completely unaware of who Dhruv Rathee is. His name stands tall as the architect of the social media strategy for the Aam Aadmi Party. His contribution has opened a new chapter in the realm of political engagement through social media.
With the valley of responsibilities on his shoulders, Dhruv continued to churn out videos without pause. By now, it was understood that by presenting half-truths, one could manipulate people easily. There's a saying, "Half-truths are more dangerous than lies." Dhruv Rathee, however, was unaware that the citizens of our country would be so easily misled and that they would receive such an enormous amount of support. Since Dhruv Rathee worked on social media for the Aam Aadmi Party, he regularly posted on the official groups and pages of the party. These groups and pages were the official ones of the Aam Aadmi Party, and Dhruv was an admin within them. So, he could post, and even a child could tell that if a person is an admin on the official page and group of a political party, what relationship he would have with that political party. On January 19, 2015, Dhruv Rathee shared a post in the Aam Aadmi Party's official group, in which he campaigned for Arvind Kejriwal, comparing him with the other leaders of the BJP. He claimed that Arvind Kejriwal was absolutely clean compared to all the other BJP leaders, whereas on the other hand, Narendra Modi is a liar, Yogi Adityanath was a rapist, Amit Shah was a murderer, and Arvind Kejriwal was a completely honest leader. I hope this video reached Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath too, so that they would also know what the Aam Aadmi Party's social media was posting on YouTube for them. On February 9, 2015, Dhruv Rathee came up with a video above all others, creating a video over the topic of Monday and shared it everywhere.
And this very video is shared from the official handle of the Aam Aadmi Party on February 9-10 and shared in the Delhi page of the Aam Aadmi Party, but this video is later removed. I will tell you why it was removed further. Then on May 17, 2015, Dhruv Rathee makes another video and shares it in the Aam Aadmi Party group as well. Time was rapidly changing, and people were becoming active on the internet. People began to understand Arvind Kejriwal's claims, they started to understand how Arvind Kejriwal was spending his money on advertisements. The people of Delhi started to realize that Arvind Kejriwal was spending their money in different places for advertisements, and because of this, people started to put pressure on Arvind Kejriwal on social media. People on social media were asking Arvind Kejriwal why he was spending so much money on advertisements, why he was wasting money, why our money was being wasted in all these things. Now the group comes forward, and on March 3, 2016, Dhruv uploads a video in which he justifies the money spent on the Odd-Even scheme advertisement and says that if people want change, then so much money will have to be spent.
Examining Allegations: A Critical Analysis of AAP's Controversies and Responses
Arvind Kejriwal, who was playing the drum before the election, was saying that I will become a minister, I am a very honest man, and I have proof of as many corrupt people as there are, I will set them right, make me a minister once. But till now, there has been no action against Sheila Dikshit in the Commonwealth Games scam, and people wanted to know what Arvind Kejriwal is doing, where have his promises gone, which he made before the election. On May 10, 2016, Dhruv Rathee uploads another video and defends Arvind Kejriwal in it, why Arvind Kejriwal is not doing anything against Sheila Dikshit. Arvind Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi, there are many corruption allegations against Sheila Dikshit, how much action has Arvind Kejriwal taken against these accused after becoming the Chief Minister, there is a big misunderstanding on this. I want to tell the truth about this to everyone today.
India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke about how people should not say that Delhi's crime is the responsibility of the Delhi Police. Today, think for yourself, who is responsible for this? Sheila Dikshit is not in power, so who is responsible for this? Responsible for the anti-corruption helpline, where thousands of calls come every day, but no one listens. If you know people who think that Kejriwal is not taking any action, understand that Kejriwal is not resting. He's not resting until he's answered every single accusation against Sheila Dikshit. The blame for this whole issue falls on the BJP and the Lieutenant Governor, whereas Dhruv knew very well that a few years ago, due to public pressure, Arvind Kejriwal took action in the CNG scam, but Sheila Dikshit's story was not even mentioned because at that time, the Aam Aadmi Party needed the support of the Congress. By revealing half-baked facts, Dhruv Rathee is trying to defend the leaders who were facing accusations. On June 27, 2016, Dinesh Mohaniya, an AAP leader, had slapped a 60-year-old man, and as a result, the Delhi Police had taken action against him. Dhruv tweeted to defend Dinesh Mohaniya, stating that if the Delhi Police started arresting people for slapping, then all the people of Delhi would be arrested. This tweet does not justify violence by AAP leaders.
However, this tweet gained traction. After this, Dhruv took another step forward because people started tweeting and posting on social media that the leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party are goons, slapping anyone, and misbehaving. To calm down such situations, on August 24, 2017, Dhruv Rathee made another video in which he defends all those leaders who face criminal charges against them, justifying their actions and giving them a clean chit.
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It's clear that there is a political conspiracy being discussed here. Dhruv Rathee shared a post on his official page showing how leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party have zero criminal cases, while leaders of the BJP have 63 criminal cases. Let me share some data on this because Dhruv Rathee keeps citing data. Jeet Somnath Bharti, a major figure in the Aam Aadmi Party, was repeatedly highlighted, justifying his actions. Dhruv talked extensively about Somnath Bharti, emphasizing his clean slate. However, on the contrary, Somnath Bharti had six criminal cases pending against him. You can see that records can indeed be manipulated.
The party just doesn't want to accept it. This is just the beginning; let's see what else emerges from the Pandora's box. In posts from 2016 and 2017, you can see that the IDs were sharing their videos on the official page of the Aam Aadmi Party. Dhruv's YouTube channel 'Exponentially' had grown. Six months ago, he had reached 100,000 subscribers. On January 12, 2017, Bhaskar Sharma, the head of social media for the Aam Aadmi Party, tweeted that Dhruv Rathee, who is a product of the party's research and social media team, has been exposed to the supporters. You all should watch this video. On February 28, 2017, Dhruv Rathee made a video at Ramjas College.
Let me explain what happened in this case. Dhruv Rathee made a video at Ramjas College in February 2017. Ramjas College of Delhi University organized a protest, inviting JNU's Umar Khalid as well. The ABVP members were against this because just a few months ago, Umar Khalid had raised anti-national slogans. So, because of this, the ABVP members wanted to cancel the protest. Then, a Leftist student group, along with ABVP members, got into a scuffle, and many people were injured. In this incident, the ABVP members who were against the protest became friends with some of the Leftist group members. Against this, Gurmeet Kaur of ABVP posted against the ABVP and was threatened with rape and violence.
You must be realizing now that it was wrong with Gurmeet Kaur because she only posted against the ABVP. But this shouldn't have happened to her. Hold on, let's see what happens next. Dhruv defends Guru Mehra Kar and also defends Umar Khalid. He portrays Umar Khalid as a soft corner and says that the whole incident was done for political games, and his friend was the BJP and the RSS.
"The students from JNU who were pursuing their PhD were about to come to give a speech at Ramjas College. The ABVP members at Ramjas College did not want them to give this speech, so they protested. They said they would let them speak after the protest, but the matter escalated. Now, these people do not like Umar Khalid because he believes in extreme left-wing ideology. He has controversial views on Kashmir, which makes him a combination of controversial ideologies. One of the students was also a 20-year-old who initiated the #StudentsAgainstABVP movement.
This enraged the ABVP and BJP supporters, and they flooded social media with abuses and threats. They not only hurled abuses but also labeled her as anti-national and threatened her with rape. All this just because she spoke against the ABVP. So far, it has been easy for them to tag people as anti-national, but after the Ramjas incident, their game has been exposed." - Dhruv Rathee in his video on Ramjas incident
The person involved here is Gurumehar Kaur, who had connections outside the Aam Aadmi Party. Gurumehar Kaur was the media manager for Gaurav Gogoi, who was also the media manager for Deepak Bajpai, the media manager for the Aam Aadmi Party. Therefore, the RSS was targeting Gurumehar. Here, Dhruv is clearly supporting anti-national sentiments, and you'll understand why he's doing this later.
In this video, Dhruv also talks about the 14,000 NGOs whose foreign funding was blocked by the Indian government. He defends them, saying that the Indian government did wrong by blocking the funding of these NGOs. These NGOs help people in our country, and the current government is afraid of them, so it took this step. Dhruv criticizes the central government heavily for this.
"You won't believe how shameless the government is. Last year in April, the Indian government blocked the foreign funding of around 14,000 NGOs." - Dhruv Rathee
The reason behind this was that among these 14,000 NGOs, there was one named George Soros's Open Society Foundation. This is getting a bit complicated; I'll simplify it for you later.
Now, let's understand Dhruv Rathee's entire timeline. In 2018, Dhruv Rathee meets with members of the Aam Aadmi Party in Karnataka and criticizes their praise. Furthermore, Dhruv Rathee also tweets that nationalism is a disease, and people who write nationalism in their status have made a big mistake many times.
"Patriotism can be countered as the last refuge." He said, Now you might understand why Dhruv supports anti-nationals. Why Dhruv stands against patriotism. Why Dhruv is often associated with people who work against our country. But there are more people you'll come across, whose connections will surely surprise you.
Arvind Kejriwal, despite being a follower of the Aam Aadmi Party, also follows Dhruv Rathee on social media. The question arises, when Dhruv had 3 million subscribers, he began promoting his channel 'The Wire' and 'News Laundry' and repeatedly urged people in his videos to rely only on these portals. He often stated that you should only trust these portals, and all other news sources, like 'Zee News,' are fake, part of 'Godi Media,' and spread false news. Alternate news sources like Logical Indian, News Laundry, wire.in, and Smokers' Lair, claiming that only a few selected online portals are trustworthy. Channels like News Laundry and Wire.in are becoming mainstream media and are being bought off. The more neutral channels come up online, the more Dhruv is expected to promote them.
Now, you might quickly understand why he was doing this. He is a writer himself, and therefore, he only refers to those portals like News Laundry for a reason – to smoothly brainwash people.
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