It has not been 10 days since Nitish Kumar moved sides and chose an ally with the BJP over the tainted Mahagathbandhan of Lalu & Rahul, and Bihar has already become intolerant. The same Bihar government which was praised for banning liquor or for its progressive policies until very recently by media organisations across India, suddenly became untouchable overnight. And although the person at the helm of affairs continues to remain the same, Bihar as a subject of discussion for many has become communal and polarised. All of this assuming it wasn’t already. Lalu Prasad Yadav who ruled Bihar for decades together and almost crippled it financially, apparently had nothing to do with identity politics.
The Lutyens media staying true to their colours and loyal their masters, started reporting about intolerance and cow-vigilantism right after the fractured Mahagathbandhan alliance broke off. The question here is not whether law and order has/had been a cause of concern before, but how and why is it suddenly a point of concern merely a week after the BJP formed government in Bihar with Nitish Kumar.
It is surprising to see that media organisations who reported and who continue to report widely on alleged cases of cow-vigilantism did not report or hardly reported any instances of rising law and order problems in Bihar until now.
A sudden shift in the style and content of news reports concerning Bihar by media organisations before and after 26th July, 2017 are self-explanatory of the media’s bias against the BJP or towards anything or any organisation which bear Hindu origins.
Look at the wire’s list of articles for example on Bihar, before and after 26th July, 2017, herein below:
Before 26th July, 2017 –
Curd Fertiliser – the Grassroots Innovation Reducing Farming Costs in Bihar – 17/7/2017 ( Article praising the innovation at grassroot level in Bihar)
Bihar Needs a Real Political Leader, Someone Who Believes in Himself – 12/07/2017 (Article praising Lalu and Tejasvi for their stand on secularism, but no criticism for their involvement in corruption)
Football Clubs for Girls in Bihar Help Avoid Child Marriage – 13/06/2017 (Article praising Bihar government initiatives to stop child marriage)
Fake News: Hatemongers Passed Off Bangladesh Video as Anti-Hindu Violence in Bihar – 15/04/2017 (Blaming BJP for alleged hatemongering)
In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Politics of Assertion and Not Identity – 06/03/2017 (Article praises Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Yadav and Mayawati)
Crime Has Gone Up in Bihar, But Not Because of the Liquor Ban – 19/01/2017 (Article focuses on increase in crime rate but not once does it blame the state machinery or the leadership of Nitish Kumar (CM) or Tejasvi Yadav (Dept.CM))
After 26th July, 2017
How Nitish the Politician Outsmarted Lalu the Father – 26/07/2017 (Article highlighting Nitish as a foxy opportunistic politician)
Will Nitish Remain His Own Man or Play Second Fiddle to His New Peers?-28/7/2017
Medical Institute in Patna Removes ‘Virgin’ From New Marital Declaration Form -03/08/2017
Bihar: Bajrang Dal Activists Thrash Three Men Over Suspicions of Transporting Beef – 03/08/2017(Article questioning alleged cow-vigilantism which has seemingly become an issue in Bihar hardly a week after the mahagatbandhan alliance broke off)
The Enigma of Nitish Kumar’s Political Suicide – 04/08/2017 (The title is self-descriptive)
The above is just an example from 1 particular media house, thewire.in which is famous for its left leaning ideology. This changing trend amongst all Lutyens media organisations is evident and so brazen that even a novice such as myself saw through the charade of theirs where they tried to change the narrative from Progress to hyper nationalism and cow-vigilantism.
Links of media houses like the Quint[1] (Bloomberg) or the Indian-Express[2] reporting jingoism in Bihar (post 26/7/2017) have also been attached herewith for the easy reference of the reader.
For these media organisations (highlighted above), news reporting is a matter of choice and convenience. This duplicity in reporting is because of the allegiance they owe to their political masters who seemingly control their actions in terms of what news they report. Scams of the magnitude of hundreds and thousands of crores of Rupees is hardly a concern for them, but an alleged attack of cow-vigilantism which stops illegal slaughter/transport of beef is a talking point for them, which through paid channels is made to go viral.
This is not new, if one notices their pattern of reporting at length it shows how selective their journalism is. The same media houses made a gung-ho about drug problems in Punjab until Punjab elections, but the minute Congress government won the state election, any news report about the menace of drugs/Bhuki completely stopped.
The same happened before Delhi elections, where media organisations across the country reported a series of attacks on churches/masjid’s just to keep out the BJP from gaining power in New Delhi. Once the Aam Aadmi Party came into power any such news reports stopped surfacing entirely.
For the last 20 months Bihar did not have law & order problem under the Mahagathbandhan government, but a BJP-JDU government is responsible for deteriorating law and order within 10 days of their government taking charge.
Questioning the government is the right of the people and the press in this country, but this selective questioning is where the problem lies.
The Lutyens media cripples when it comes to questioning Sonia Gandhi after Crores of Rupees are found during an IT raid on Karnataka Power Minister DK Shivkumar, but they don’t shy away from questioning the PM or even asking for his resignation (through their political masters) because demonetization affected a few politicians in Trinamool ruled Bengal[3] or merely because Delhi CM Kejriwal does not like Modiji[4]. It is this selective journalism by our enemies within, which is hurting us, as a country more, more than the eminent threat by our enemies outside.
The advent of Social media has been a boon as well as a bane for us. While we have started seeing through the travesty of the paid media more easily now, this has also resulted in our memory being shortened because of an overload of information fed to us.
With more and more scams of the opposition broken everyday be it on National Herald, CWG, Bofors, fodder scam, solar panel scam or the raids on DK Shivkumar (INC Karnataka), it has become easy for the people to forget the past sins because of a systematic counter narrative built by the left leaning media houses which focus on cow-vigilantism and jingoism of a few fringe groups to keep the attention of the people diverted and away from the scams which otherwise hold the potential to end the political career of many on a cracking of a whip.
News organisations do not hesitate before “sponsoring” their propaganda campaigns when they pay social media platforms to highlight a case of stalking by a BJP leader’s son to make it a national outrage, but go dumb-deaf and blind when RSS karyakarta’s are killed in broad daylight in Kerala. (Note: We are not defending any culprit (alleged) here, all we seek to do is, highlight the pattern in which media organisations report (in some cases not report) incidents to suit their political narrative)
Letting these political bootlickers construct fake propagandas unhindered and undeterred to manipulate the citizens is going to be impossible with us being around as watchdogs. As for the readers, we take it upon ourselves to point out duplicity every time someone tries to manipulate the common citizens through their prejudiced writings.
[1] Men Carrying “Beef” Thrashed and Detained, Truck Seized
[2] First attack over meat in Bihar: 3 held, beaten up
[3] Narendra Modi must and should resign: Trinamool Congress
