The flood in Bihar has taken a toll on 73 lives so far. The meteorological department has predicted heavy rainfall in Patna, Vaishali and Khagaria districts and the casualties are expected to rise in the coming days. The government machinery is working in its full capacity and NDRF has rescued thousands of people.
The damage to the state’s economy, infrastructure, and human capital is huge by any measure. But, the media coverage on the floods and the losses propelled by it is minuscule. The so called National Media (Television and Newspapers) have so far royally ignored Bihar floods, and it is not a talk point on social media (Facebook, Twitter) too.
ThePrint, a news portal, carries out daily analysis of media coverage. The analysis of news pattern on English and Hindi Television media, carried out by Shailaja Bajpai, tells us that, the Bihar flood was not an important matter of debate in English media.
https://theprint.in/category/opinion/telescope/
The Bihar flood was not covered by English newspapers also, and it not an issue for Editorial pages, where the ‘experts’ try to solve every global problem with a single stroke.
https://theprint.in/category/plugged-in/
https://theprint.in/category/thought-shot/
The Hindi newspapers, which have a large audience in the state of Bihar, covered the floods extensively. But they refused to give front page importance to the tragedy.
https://theprint.in/author/renu-agal/
There was widespread criticism by the concerned citizens over media apathy towards Bihar floods. But the criticism, of course, will not increase the coverage of floods.
To make some ‘constructive criticism’ over the apathy of mass media towards Bihar floods, we need to examine the reasons behind the lax coverage.
Like every other issue, the primary matter here is – The ECONOMY of Mass Media.
The mass media is fully corporatized and like a company in any other sector, media companies work for ‘profit’. The primary source of income for media companies is advertisement. Companies advertise their products to reach out to consumers and mass media is primary medium for this.
The companies, which advertise products in media companies, aims to target the consumers with high purchasing power. And this is the reason behind apathy of mass media towards Bihar. News cycles have been filled with reports from Maharashtra and elsewhere. The per capita income of Maharashtra is 1,80,596 rupees for FY 18 while for Bihar it is 43,822 rupees for the same FY. Therefore, if an average consumer in Maharashtra is four times richer than that of Bihar, the advertising companies will, of course, give their ads to companies which show more content of Maharashtra. And this is the primary reason that flood in Mumbai receives greater coverage than flood in Patna or Guwahati.
The advertisement companies want to target the audience with higher purchasing power, therefore the mass media companies target the richer and this ‘vicious cycle’ keeps the tragedy in poorer states on the margins.
Bihar continues to remain one of the poorest regions of the country. Good politicians and policymakers pine for continuity so that their state or region could achieve sustainable economic growth. Bihari politicians got the same with Lalu Yadav’s reign of one and a half decade and now Nitish Kumar completed almost same time period on CM’s chair but, development avoided Bihar. The current batch of Bihari politicians (Lalu Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Sushil Modi) learned the first lessons of politics under the tutelage of socialist icon, Jayprakash Narayan and ‘socialism’ remains evident in his economic policies. Over the last five decades, they had tried to distribute wealth and deliver public services rather than ‘encouraging’ creation of wealth.
The Bihari politicians used the money given by ‘central government’ and that sent by ‘migrant labourers’ to distribute freebies to poor people rather than spending in infrastructure, industrial development and attracting ‘services companies’. As is clearly evident in the above image, out of 1,81,255 crore rupees Bihar government received in FY 19, only 31,002 crore rupees or one sixth is generated from its own tax. More than two thirds of the money is share from central taxes and grants from central government. On the other hand, richer states likes Maharashtra generate almost half of it on their own. In fact, even UP generates more than 25 per cent of the total revenue on its own.
Bihar is among the states with highest percentage of population below poverty line. In 2013, 33.74 percentage of state population was living below poverty line compared to 21.92 of all India average. This means that almost one third of Biharis are still living below poverty line compared to one fifth of the Indian average. Majority of the population in the state are still employed in Agriculture. Industries and services companies don’t prefer the state due to ‘law and order’ problems and the lackluster attitude of state government.
The poverty of Bihar is primary reason behind the apathy of mass media towards Bihar floods. The problem is not limited to Bihar; the calamities in other states with low purchasing power or low audience penetration receive very limited coverage. The flood in Assam and Uttar Pradesh, death from heat waves in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the socioeconomic issues in poorer states are not covered by the so called national media.