Instagram creator Nakul Dhull, who has built a one‑million–strong following by projecting himself as a progressive, anti‑establishment voice, is facing severe backlash after posting videos that seems to trivialise women’s fear and normalise harassment at night.
Dhull, often cheered on by self‑styled feminists, “seculars” and liberal influencers for his anti‑government and anti‑Modi content, has previously called festivals such as Holi “unsafe for women” and described them as spaces notorious for harassment. In older clips, he spoke about how groping and non‑consensual touching are routinely brushed aside under the excuse of “Bura na mano, Holi hai”, positioning himself as someone calling out misogyny in popular culture.
However, the same creator has now put out a video in which he casually advises young men to “make women experience fear” instead of being scared of women, by stalking a lone woman at night. Addressing a follower named Kartik, whom is described as “average‑looking, insecure and scared to talk to girls” and is looking for advice from Dhull, he says there is no need to fear women as “at most, a girl can reject you, what more can she do, file a case?” He then adds that to truly make them understand fear, a boy should “try to walk behind a girl at 11 pm”: follow her, run after her, “drive fast, run fast, and overtake”, and then watch their reaction as girls are left speechless.
The message is framed as confidence‑building advice for shy men, but the practical “tip” is effectively a playbook for recreating the exact fear that lakhs of women in India already live with on a daily basis. In a country where official crime data and countless testimonies show that women walking alone at night are routinely stalked, harassed and assaulted, treating that fear as a social experiment or prank for content crosses every line of basic decency.
Instagram creator Nakul Dhull routinely positions himself as a progressive voice and since he is constantly posting anti-government and anti-Modi content, a lot of self-proclaimed feminists, seculars and liberals cheer him on and amplify his content.
He has called out festivals… pic.twitter.com/SWozrVaRaF
— BALA (@erbmjha) February 22, 2026
It is noteworthy that Dhull is doing this not in a private chat but in broadcast mode, to an audience of around a million followers, many of them teenage boys. Telling that audience to simulate stalking “for fun” is not harmless humour but an invitation to normalise intimidating behaviour in public spaces. The fact that Dhull explicitly emphasises “don’t tease her, just walk away, overtake and run” has done little to reassure anyone because the core dynamic he is endorsing is a man following a lone woman at 11PM purely to trigger fear.
The outrage has been sharpened by the contrast with Dhull’s earlier commentary on Holi and women’s safety. In another viral video, he mocks a familiar line used by harassers during the festival: “Don’t feel bad, it is Holi, I have only applied colour from the top (superficially), have I opened the bra?” The tone is ostensibly perverted, and reproducing such language as punchlines normalises the exact excuses used to justify non‑consensual touching.
What has angered many observers is the near‑silence from the same progressive and feminist circles that previously boosted Dhull’s content when he spoke against the government or majoritarian politics.
This episode exposes a deep double standard: creators who posture as allies on women’s safety when it fits their political narrative but treat women’s actual lived fear as expendable when there is an opportunity for edgy, viral content. In Nakul Dhull’s case, the dissonance is stark – a self‑styled progressive who condemned unsafe festivals for women, now using the language and logic of stalkers as a motivational gimmick, and doing so in front of an impressionable mass audience.
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