There is a saying which goes “ In better countries, the rain disappears from the road after a few minutes. In poorly run countries, the road disappears after a few minutes of rain”.
In Mumbai, much more is disappearing in the rain , not only just the roads, because no lessons have been learnt from 2005 disaster , after more than a decade. When the financial capital of the country can come to a standstill due to heavy rains, what to say of the less unfortunate parts of the country?
Ten people have been killed in Mumbai. 158 people have been killed in Assam, over 100 in UP and over 500 in Bihar. 50000 plus have been rendered homeless, thousands of hectares of crops are inundated, more than a thousand villages are under water.
http://reliefweb.int/report/india/situation-report-1-bihar-flood-2017
The figure of ten dead is dwarfed by the huge tolls in other parts of the country, but does the entire Bihar or Assam get the 24/7 kind of coverage that Mumbai gets?
No takers for the above for round the clock coverage.
The ten people killed in Mumbai is not by any means a minor tragedy, because every life is precious and nothing is more criminal than lives lost due to corruption and public apathy. “Spirit of Mumbai” has been a repeated cliché, but it is fascinating and overwhelming to see it in action every time. People throwing their homes open to strangers, eateries and even slum dwellers offering stranded people food. But how long will Mumbai sustain itself in disasters merely with ‘spirit of Mumbai’? When will there be accountability? Where has all the money spent for trying to prevent disasters like this gone?
And why is there a world of difference covering the floods in a metropolitan city and the hinterlands?
Reasons why Mumbai floods deserve attention but Assam and Bihar floods don’t?
- Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, which pays close to one third of the country’s taxes, which determines the financial indicator of the country, this is where the stock markets are in which the share prices rise and fall, and where the business decisions are made and BMC is Asia’s Richest civic body as well as the biggest in Asia in terms of spending. Mumbai coming to a standstill is pure catastrophe.
- Mumbai is the home to India’s industrialists, film fraternity, ad agencies and various media outlets, whose lives are certainly more valuable than us lesser mortals.
- Its one of the most densely populated places on earth, with nearly 20 million people squeezed into it. So any disaster which affects a large number of human beings can be covered instantly by the TRP hungry news traders. To cover the disaster in Mumbai, one merely has to get out of the studio. Why bother to travel to places in the country to cover floods which our educated folks can’t find on the map?
Flooding cities make for better disaster narrative on visual media than flooding hamlets and villages. Villages should only be covered when some foreign NGO gives the media house funds to weave yet another atrocity narrative.
The rage of tragedy for the media today depends on where it has taken place. That’s why any kind of flooding or disturbance in all seven NE states which contribute to barely 20 seats in the Lok Sabha hardly gets a mention. The media always makes an issue of discrimination, racism on any flimsy pretext but it has been guilty of Floods in Assam, blockade in Manipur or Nagaland will not get more than a paragraph. The 2012 violence in Assam between Bodos and Bangladeshi illegals was blacked out by the media. Most of the candle light vigils (a laughable concept which needs to go) post 26/11/2008 attacks were for the people killed in Oberoi Trident and Taj, hardly any for the people killed on CST or Cama hospital. Any candle light vigils for the 200 odd victims of 7th July 2006 local train bombings?
It is not for the first time that such a devastation has taken away so many lives across the country. The media cannot improve the situation, but at least it should have the decency to not rub salt on the wounds by selective coverage. The editors who are whining on MSM and social media about the unequal coverage are a funny lot because one fails to understand what prevents them from leading the way. It is simply unpardonable that a cult leader’s arrest is given more footage than five hundred people dying of floods in the neighbouring state. Floods in Mumbai will certainly affect the country more than a flood in Purnia. But this doesn’t mean that the person dying in Purnia is less of a tragedy than the person dying in Mumbai.