While PM Narendra Modi’s #SelfieWithDaughter earned him well-deserved accolades across the country - and in fact the world – for uniting people in the cause for the girl child, it also elicited some unfortunate activity in its wake.
Most celebrities and politicians had been effusive in their praise for the initiative in their social media commentaries. Not so Kavita Krishnan and Shruti Seth. The duo stood out from the crowd in their open dissent against the campaign – an act that brought them hate mails, derogatory tweets, slander and abuse.
Ironic that the amount of misogynist abuse directed at them has been in direct contrast to the ‘equality’ that #SelfieWithDaughter was meant to promote.
Actress Shruti Seth, however, has proved that she is not one to take things lying down and has responded on twitter with a strongly-worded open letter, beautiful in its poignancy.
Take a look at some excerpts from the letter:
A little note to India,
I write this to an entire nation because no one individual can be held responsible for bringing about change in the mindset of a billion odd people. Change can only happen if there is awareness at an individual level.
On the morning of 28th June, I made the grave mistake of expressing my views on an initiative called#selfiewithdaughter which had been blessed by our PM. Most people found it to be a sweet gesture and a means to create awareness about female infanticide. I, sadly, didn’t find the idea very palatable. Keep in mind that I have an eleven-month daughter of my own. But I expect more from the man who’s supposed to usher in a new era of change, not just tenuous surface-level initiatives.
... Dear Sir,
If you truly wish to empower women I urge you to condemn this kind of hatred being spread in your name.
Regretfully, I deleted my initial tweet because of the backlash. But I stand by what I said and I’ll reiterate it here: “Selfies don’t bring about change, reform does. So please try and be bigger than a photograph. Come on!”
And as for my initial reservation about the initiative being nothing more than eyewash, I am deeply saddened to see that, in the end, I was proved right.
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