I was proved right: Shruti Seth responds to #SelfieWithDaughter Twitter backlash

On 28 June, actress Shruti Seth, like millions of other Indians, responded to the Prime Minister’s call for #SelfieWithDaughter during his Mann ki Baat.

But unlike many others, Seth took the opportunity not to post a selfie with her daughter, but to criticize the PM.

What followed was a relentless 48 hour backlash where the actress was called everything from a ‘prostitute’ to a ‘b*tch’. And in the tsunami of abuse, these were the kindest of words.

Seth, who initially deleted her Tweets , on Thursday wroth an open letter to the nation.

Recounting the event, she wrote how the abuse was not restricted to herself, “the tweets were targeted at me, my family, my ‘Muslim’ husband, my 11 month old daughter and, of course, my non-existent, dwindling, no-good career as an actor.”

“Men and women alike said the most vile things about me, stripping me of all my dignity as someone’s daughter, wife and mother and most importantly a woman. Men who were busy hash-tagging their selfies with their daughters one minute called me slanderous names the next. Asked me if I knew who my real father was. Questioned if I had been sexually abused as a child and hence was opposed to the idea of a selfie with my father,” she added.

At the end, addressing the Prime Minister Narendra Midi himself, she said that she stood by her original statement 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.”

Read the full note here .

A little note to India,

Read: http://t.co/ZG8Wt6oqN5

— Shruti Seth (@SethShruti) July 2, 2015