Gul Panag, who has frequently criticised the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, has now publicly slammed YouTuber Dhruv Rathee over remarks in which he encouraged foreign journalists to “humiliate” the Indian Prime Minister during overseas visits.
The controversy began after Dhruv Rathee reacted to a recent incident involving Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng during Modi’s visit to Norway. During an official event in Oslo, Lyng attempted to ask Prime Minister Modi a question while he was attending a joint appearance with Norwegian leaders. According to reports, the event was not structured as a formal press conference.
Videos of the interaction circulated widely online, particularly after footage showed Lyng continuing to ask questions while following Modi toward an elevator area after the event. The incident quickly became a major talking point on social media, with several critics of the Modi government praising the journalist’s actions and portraying her as a symbol of journalistic accountability.
Dhruv Rathee, who has over 25 million subscribers on YouTube and currently resides in Germany, strongly endorsed the journalist’s actions in a post on X.
In his statement, Rathee argued that Prime Minister Modi “deserves to be humiliated everywhere he goes” because, according to him, Modi has not held a press conference in the 12 years since becoming Prime Minister. Rathee further accused the Prime Minister of failing to meet what he described as the basic standards of transparency and accountability expected from a democratic leader.
Rathee also openly encouraged journalists from other European countries to question Modi during foreign visits in the same way Helle Lyng did. He wrote that foreign journalists should “embarrass” the Prime Minister so much that he would eventually be forced to publicly answer questions and demonstrate accountability.
The remarks immediately triggered strong reactions online, including criticism from Gul Panag, who, despite being known as a long-time critic of the Modi government, drew a distinction between political disagreement and what she viewed as diminishing the dignity of the office of the Prime Minister on foreign soil.
Responding directly to Rathee on X, Gul Panag stated that while people are fully entitled in a democracy to oppose a Prime Minister, criticise government policies, protest or vote differently, she believed reducing the office of India’s Prime Minister to a joke internationally crossed a line.
Panag argued that such behaviour does not represent healthy democratic dissent and instead weakens not only the individual occupying the office but also the institution itself and, ultimately, the image of India and its citizens abroad.
Her post quickly gained significant attention online and reportedly crossed more than 113,000 views on X, sparking widespread debate regarding the limits of political criticism, the meaning of dissent and how Indian political disagreements should be expressed on international platforms.
Gul Panag’s criticism of Rathee attracted attention,n particularly because she herself has often been outspoken against the Modi government on multiple issues over the years.
Her political association with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) began in 2014 when she joined the party along with her father, retired Lieutenant General H S Panag.
Shortly after joining AAP, Gul Panag contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Chandigarh as the party’s candidate. However, she lost the election to BJP leader Kirron Kher.
During the 2020–2021 farmers’ protests against the Modi government’s now-repealed farm laws, Gul Panag emerged as a vocal supporter of the agitation. She repeatedly criticised the government’s handling of the protests, raised concerns regarding the deaths of protesters and opposed branding demonstrators as “anti-national.”
However, Panag later distanced herself from the AAP and officially quit the party in June 2021. At the time, she alleged that the party was “flirting with Khalistanis” in Punjab and claimed she had earlier warned the leadership about the issue.
Her father, Lt Gen (Retd) H S Panag, was also closely associated with the AAP during that period and frequently commented on defence and strategic affairs. Over the years, he has repeatedly criticised the Modi government on issues including national security, governance and the military situation along the India-China border in Ladakh.
H S Panag has also publicly warned against what he described as attempts to politically align sections of the Indian Army’s senior leadership with the ideology of the BJP, arguing that such perceptions could damage the apolitical image of the armed forces.
Back in 2017, he attracted major controversy after criticising the Indian Army’s controversial “human shield” incident in Kashmir, stating that the images from the episode would continue to haunt the institution.
Against that background, Gul Panag’s criticism of Dhruv Rathee has gained added significance because it came from a public figure who herself has consistently disagreed with and criticised the Modi government, but nevertheless argued that criticism should not extend to publicly humiliating India’s Prime Minister abroad.
The episode has now evolved into a wider debate online about the boundaries between democratic criticism, political activism, patriotism and the international representation of Indian institutions and leadership.
