The national media never had inklings of the ground realities, which were against the communal and divisive forces. When the results were out, the first casualty was the public trust in the efficacy of objectivity and fairness of media reporting. Only the local media comprising small, medium newspapers and local TV news channels had the right cord with the people and their pulse beat, who gauged the public mood correctly as proven by the ground realities.

The media house coverage of the recently concluded Bihar elections across the spectrum has, once again, re-enforced public faith in the paid news syndrome and how it is playing a menacing role in denying the people of India their inherent right to correct and fair information. After all, the crass commercial interests of their owners, who through propaganda and campaign of disinformation are out to tilt election results in favour of their business interests, not the public interests, guide the media world of India. Business houses, mafia, political parties and others, who are guided solely by their own personal commercial interests and not the interests of the nation, own the large-scale newspapers of all hues and languages and TV news channels.

The people of India have lost their abiding faith in the media world as a watchdog of their interests by giving them correct and fair information as proven by the Bihar elections results. It’s the pecuniary interests of the media house owners that guide the media houses and not the common public good.

The Bihar elections have proved that in Indian system of rule of law based democratic governance, people are the sovereign masters of the government they elect and their inherent right to live in harmony and peace amidst their diversity of culture, languages and religions, cannot be bartered away by communal and divisive forces of the government of the day. As is proven, people know how to safeguard their interests through their secret ballots at the hustings!