Polish YouTuber Karolina Goswami has reached out to the Indian government after fans of pro-AAP propagandist YouTuber Dhruv Rathee fans sent over 220 death threats and abuses to her over her videos exposing Dhruv Rathee’s propaganda.
Karolina Goswami’s videos provided a critical analysis of Dhruv Rathee’s content. On her YouTube channel “India in Details”, she exposed Rathee’s propagation of misleading information and biased presentation of facts. This criticism enraged Rathee’s fans, who threatened and abused Goswami and her family.
On the 26th of May, Karolina Goswami and her husband Anurag Goswami posted a video titled “Ban’ Dhruv Rathee… Before it’s too late? Indians, we need your support!” on their YouTube channel and made an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, ministers Anurag Thakur and Smriti Irani informing them about the threats she, her husband and their two sons faced from Dhruv Rathee’s supporters after they made two fact-check videos exposing Dhruv Rathee “fake content”.
“My family and I have faced more than 220 threats and we can’t bear this anymore…” Karolina said. She further raised questions before the Indian government asking why should Dhruv Rathee be allowed to publish fake content and face no legal action for the same. In the video, the couple shared screenshots of threatening and highly derogatory messages they received over WhatsApp and other online platforms.
While raising concern over a woman YouTuber receiving rape and death threats from Dhruv Rathee fans, Anurag Goswami said that Rathee asked his followers to “ignore attention seeking YouTubers” claiming that they do “drama” to get views and want him to react which would “increase their popularity”.
Karolina and Anurag Goswami also questioned propaganda outlets including Al-Jazeera, BBC and DW saying that they claim to be concerned about women’s safety in India but are not worried about the threats against a foreigner in India.
Karolina Goswami has formally appealed to the government for help, demanding protection for herself and her family. She stressed that her purpose was never to incite hostility, but instead to engage in constructive criticism and fact-checking.
Karolina Goswami’s two fact-check videos on Dhruv Rathee’s videos triggered an outpour of threats and abuses
In April this year, Karolina posted a video titled “BIG EXPOSE! Dhruv Rathee, Germany, DW, and the ‘ANTl-INDIA PR0PAGANDA’, wherein she talked about the rise of neo-Nazis in Germany, India’s poor ranking in George Soros‘s Open Society Foundation-funded V-Dem [Varieties of Democracy] Institute’s Democracy Index, and Deutsche Welle’s church connection and Dhruv Rathee’s “dictator-like” behaviour fellow YouTubers critical of him and his content.
In another video Karolina Goswami talked about the V-Dem’s Democracy Index, its claim that India is “electoral autocracy” and about being the so-called “liberal democracy”. It is pertinent to note that in one of his videos titled “Dara Hua Dictator?”, Dhruv Rathee cited the controversial V-Dem report to claim that Indian democracy is in bad shape. The last video that was uploaded on the India in Details YouTube channel was part two of the expose on Dhruv Rathee and V-Dem’s democracy index.
In the video titled “Fact-checking the ‘god’ | Karolina Goswami vs Dhruv Rathee | V-Dem’s DEMOCRACY INDEX Exposed”, Karolina talked about how Dhruv Rathee overlooks facts and presents a positive image of Germany and its democracy, she questioned the formula V-Dem uses to categorise countries as liberal democracy, electoral autocracy etc. Goswami had also discussed how Dhruv Rathee’s alleged campaigns target YouTubers criticising or fact-checking him. Recently, popular YouTubers Abhiraj and Niyati who run the channel “Abhi and Niyu” were also targeted by Dhruv Rathee in his video saying that the duo were doing “charanvandana” [in this context, bootlickng] before Prime Minister Modi as they received an award at the National Creators Award function. Responding to Dhruv Rathee’s claims, Abhiraj called Rathee a “bully” saying that he is curbing the freedom of expression of fellow YouTubers who appear to be his competitors.
When Dhruv Rathee supporters attacked Karolina Goswami in Europe over video fact-checking Rathee
In September last year, Karolina Goswami and her husband said in a YouTube video that Dhruv Rathee’s fans attacked them in Berlin and Paris, vandalised their car, and took away some devices when they had gone to meet the father of baby Ariha, who was taken away by the German authorities. ‘Dhruv Ratheew will destroy you, we will destroy you’, they allegedly screamed at Karolina Goswami when she was shooting the video. The duo had then filed a case against the attackers.
Notably, the confrontation between Rathee and Goswami began in June 2021, when Goswami posted a video where she fact-checked Dhruv Rathee’s claims on the World Happiness Index. She had shown how the claims made by Rathee regarding the methodology of the survey were incorrect. This was followed by two more videos fact-checking Rathee’s claims. She had said that Dhruv Rathee is politically motivated, and he is spreading politically charged, fabricated, invalid and fake content while presenting himself as an ‘educator’.
