Introduction
Dhruv Rathee (Hindi pronunciation: [d̪ʰrʊʋ raːʈʰiː]; born 8 October 1994) is an Indian YouTuber, vlogger and social media activist. He is known for his YouTube videos on social, political and environmental issues. As of June 2024, he has about 28.7 million subscribers across all channels and 4.86 billion total video views.
Early life and education
Rathee was born into a Hindu Jat family in the Indian state of Haryana. He received his primary education in Haryana before pursuing higher education in Germany. Rathee earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, followed by a master's degree in renewable energy from the same institution.
Career
Rathee is mainly known for his political videos, which mainly contain fact-checking and explanatory content. According to ThePrint, Rathee was one of the first Indian users to use YouTube as a political platform, having started uploading travel videos in 2013 but by the end of 2013, he started shifting his prospective towards political and social topics.
Alongside his serious content, Rathee launched Pee News, a satirical "fake news" segment. Additionally, from 2017 until early 2020, Rathee wrote opinion columns for ThePrint. Dhruv's coverage of 2018 BJP-AAP scuffle was considered as one-sided and half the story.
In July 2020, Rathee began another YouTube channel called Dhruv Rathee Vlogs, where he shares his international travel vlogs. In addition to his travel vlogs, Rathee hosts various shows, including DW Travel of Deutsche Welle and Decode with Dhruv of Netflix India. He also hosts a podcast on Spotify called Maha Bharat with Dhruv Rathee.
As of February 2022, Rathee began a shorts channel to share 30-seconds fact videos. The channel offers a quick and accessible way for viewers to engage with the information Rathee presents. In September 2022, he faced controversy when a video he posted about the political crisis in Pakistan was blocked by India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The ministry claimed that the video contained a distorted map of India, in which parts of Kashmir were depicted as part of Pakistan or "disputed". In March 2023, he also faced copyright charges from Dabur on his video titled "The dark-side of cold drinks". In an order, the Calcutta high court ordered social media platforms to remove the video.
On 18 April 2024, Rathee announced five new YouTube channels focusing to publish dubbed videos in five Indian regional languages, which includes Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada languages.
Personal life
Rathee is a resident of Germany. In November 2021, Rathee married his long-time girlfriend Juli Lbr at the Belvedere Palace, in Vienna, Austria. Their first child was born in September 2024.
In media
In 2023, he was included in TIME Magazine's list of Next Generation Leaders.