We are all aware of what an Old Wives’ Tale means. The lame excuses that are often given by our politicians in defence of any questionable behaviour, statement or act on their part, have inspired me to coin the phrase New Wives’ Tale. I have chosen an incident, relatively less detrimental in degree to the rule of law, to elucidate the idea of New Wives Tale.

This is an incident reported in a newspaper (Deccan Herald, Wednesday, May 18, 2011) about an MLA who was detained by the police at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad for carrying a firearm and live ammunition. The MLA was on his way to New Delhi and did have a licence to carry a revolver, but the licence had expired on 31^st of December last year. The MLA also did apply for the renewal of the licence in the month of May but alas! Deputy Commissioner was on a long leave and the same was not renewed. Now the question anybody would ask is ‘why the MLA was carrying the firearm without a renewed licence?’ The answer to the question that has been reported by the daily is that the MLA’s ‘wife had mistakenly kept the revolver in his suitcase’. Wow! Should we believe that? A wife of an MLA puts in his suitcase a firearm with live ammunition ‘mistakenly’. If we presume that the wife was educated, the reason cited is amusing and lest we presume that she wasn’t educated, even then reason is out of the ordinary and completely silly. Now this is what I call a New Wives’ Tale.

Seeking an excuse by citing new wives’ tale or a lame excuse is nothing new for our politicians. We have many a times come across incidents where our honourable political leaders get caught in something and in defence come out with lame excuses. I do not say that only politicians tell us New Wives’ Tale, all of us do at some point or the other to somebody, but the question is how far such tales should be accepted when our Political leaders, being in such responsible positions, state them, which is no doubt a common habit for them. Nevertheless it has happened that people have accepted such lame excuses given by them and have forgiven them too; one wonders whether they actually believed in those New Wives’ Tales or not.

Now the question is how do we deal with this? Should we educate the people that all the excuses are not good and that they may be lame; they may be a New Wives’ Tale? Should we educate them that they should not be complacent with the lame excuses and should hold them responsible for their deviant comportment? Should we educate the politicians not to make us laugh by citing such lame reasons in their defence? Should we educate the people to vote for only those politicians who can give us good reasons in defence? ‘Or’ should we simply elect good politicians? Questions abound. Answer is one ‘Education’.