What all went wrong in #SelfieWithDaughter campaign and Shruti Seth Saga!

On Sunday June 28, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited people to share their #SelfieWithDaughter in order to promote Girl child welfare. The campaign generated a viral response and it took not much long before twitter timelines were filled with proud parents flaunting their #SelfieWithDaughter .

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words!

But as they say India is the land of diversity. While many twitter celebrities were condemning their fate for not having a daughter or still being unmarried, a few others decided to express their adverse opinion on this idea.

Actor Shruti Seth and activist Kavita Krishnan  were among the most vocal people who questioned this campaign and garnered maximum eyeballs not to mention, the rants!

They both became targets for a lot of trolls for criticizing #SelfieWithDaughter campaign. While Krishnan's tweet referred to a snooping incident of illegal surveillance of a young woman in 2009, Seth's tweet commented on the PM being selfie-obsessed rather than real work.

Some of the tweets targeted on them were in really bad taste and should have been avoided at all costs. Indeed what else could have been easily averted was a not so well thought criticism of a nice and appealing concept.

While everyone has a right to opinion, everyone also has a right to rebuttal. Comments of Shruti Seth suggesting honorable Prime Minister to get on ground and stop being so #SelfieObsessed was worth criticizing. Though the route people took for it is something that I strongly disagree with.

Happiness Hurts None!

Factually it would be wrong to say that social media campaigns don't have any affect on grounds. Soaring revenues of Facebook and twitter from paid campaigns is the best proof of how people are utilizing these mediums to get their message to masses. If the prime minister of India is capable enough to spread a good message to millions of people by costing nothing to the exchequer, I don't get what's wrong in this?

All he did was mention it over his radio address and tweet it through his account.

What if among millions of his social media followers even a few hundreds changed their opinion of not having a daughter?

What if seeing all those proud father-daughter selfie's some men in a village of Haryana decided to shun plans of an illegal ultrasound of her wife for knowing the gender of their unborn child?

What if it added some sweet memories for a girl who was being ignored by her family for long and was for the first time lovingly invited by her father for a photograph?

No, these are not entirely fictional situations. India is too big and diverse for anything to happen.

Even if you do not agree with any of the above things, even you can not deny that it would have touched lives of many hundreds of girls throughout India and the World!

Indeed I would like to ask what exactly did Shruti Seth's and Kavita Krishnan's not so well thought criticism achieved?

If they think #SelfieWithDaughter was just a symbolic gesture and have so much dissent for symbolic gestures I would really want to know what they think of people who marched with candles on India gate for one of India's daughter. Wasn't it also a symbolic gesture. Even the Fast-unto-deaths do not directly yield anything other than weight loss and can be very well called as a symbolic gesture, but aren't they an excellent medium that our founding fathers blessed us with?

Both these learned ladies must have heard of Mahatma Gandhi and what all he did for India's independence. Wasn't many of the campaigns he undertook and promoted can be classified as symbolic gestures? Or shall I say talking a "Dandi March" and making a pinch of salt doesn't solves issues instead he should have walked in all Indian streets distributing salt packets to everyone!

It is easy to speak, type or tweet sitting under comforts of our home. Making policies and governing people is a completely different story.

I hope someday they will understand what I mean to say. A country of billion people does requires symbolic gestures. Gestures that have power to convert an idea in to a mass movement. Gestures that can touch lives. Gestures that you and I can become a part of. Because One man can't bring the change unless we become a part of it!

Ms. Shruti Seth and Ms. Kavita Krishnan, I won't say you did it for publicity, I won't say the people hurling abuses on you two over twitter were right but I must say that with name and fame comes a responsibility. Onus of being a responsible citizen doesn't lie on one PM or few Ministers but it is a collective responsibility that we all should collectively share.

#SelfieWithDaughter was a honest attempt to make people proud of their daughter. This was a small part of a social change that our Honorable PM and proud citizens want to see in India.
It will happen, not today, not tomorrow but someday for sure and I hope you will be happy to be a part of it!

(Image Source: Google Image Source and Twitter.)

Unknown

Author & Editor

An Engineer by qualification, a blogger by choice and an enterprenur by interest. Loves to read and write and explore new places and people.