By Robert Clements
Crying Wolf Too Often..!
We all know the old fable of the shepherd boy, and perhaps because it is so simple we dismiss it too easily. Yet some of the deepest political truths are often hidden in children’s stories. A boy runs into town crying that wolves are attacking his sheep.
Villagers abandon work, rush to help, and discover they have been fooled.
He repeats the deception. The villagers run again. Then one day the wolf actually comes. The boy screams, the sheep scatter, but nobody comes. Trust had died before the sheep did. And that old fable came back to me as I heard the Prime Minister address the nation after the Women’s Reservation Bill was defeated.
Let us be honest, the Opposition was not opposing women’s representation. Their objection was to what many believed was hidden behind the bill, the delimitation issue tucked inside like a Trojan horse.
And when a Trojan horse is detected, should one go before the country sounding wounded as though some noble effort had been sabotaged, or should one admit the strategy was seen through and move on?
That was where the shepherd boy entered my thoughts. Because if people begin to feel they are being outwitted too often, if every dramatic gesture hides some political calculation, then even sincere appeals begin to sound theatrical. And that is dangerous, because leadership does not run on speeches. It runs on credibility. A leader may command attention through rhetoric, but trust is another matter. Trust is earned slowly and squandered quickly.
I sometimes think politics resembles those old medicine sellers who used to board trains. They would wave little bottles and shout that their tonic cured everything from stomach pain to heartbreak.
The first time passengers listened.
The second time they smiled indulgently.
By the tenth station nobody looked up from their newspaper. Even if the medicine worked, exaggeration had destroyed belief. It is the same when leaders cry wolf too often. When every issue is painted as a grand betrayal or every setback as a national wound, people ow weary.
There will be real wolves one day. Security crises. National emergencies.
Moments when a leader genuinely needs a people united behind him. But unity cannot be switched on like election lights. It cannot be manufactured in a speech. It is built over years through trust, and trust comes when citizens feel they are not constantly being manipulated for votes.
That speech, let us admit it, was also aimed at women voters in West Bengal before an election. Citizens may not use terms like constitutional strategy or Trojan horse politics, but they sense when a horse carries more than cavalry. Usually before it enters the gate.
What amused me, though perhaps amused is the wrong word, was the wounded tone after the bill was blocked.
As though the nation had missed some magnificent act of generosity.
But the ordinary citizen is often much shrewder than politicians imagine. I have found the common voter frequently wiser than television panellists. Outside the shouting debates, people quietly observe.
They know when they are being persuaded and they know when they are being played.
That is why the shepherd boy story survives. It is not really about wolves. It is about what happens when credibility is spent too cheaply.
A leader must be believed when he speaks, not merely applauded. Applause can be manufactured. We have become experts at that. Crowds can be assembled, slogans choreographed, emotion stirred.
But belief cannot be staged. It has to be deserved. And if one keeps crying wolf for political effect, then one day in some real emergency, when a rallying call is genuinely needed, the people may fold their arms and say, there he goes again. That would be a tragedy, not for a leader, but for a nation.
I have seen this even in ordinary life. In a housing society there is always one gentleman who predicts disaster every month. “The building will collapse,” he warns, because he is interested in redeveloping his colony and getting an extra room for his married son.
Residents panic. Nothing happens.
Next month another alarm. Nothing again. Then one monsoon a real crack appears in his house, and he shouts in genuine fear, but nobody attends the meeting.
They assume it is his hobby. That is how trust dies. Quietly. With folded arms and raised eyebrows. And once dead, trust does not rise easily.
Sometimes I think statesmanship lies not in how often a leader addresses the nation but in how carefully he guards the value of speaking. If every trumpet blast is called war, who will march when war actually comes?
If every disagreement is portrayed as catastrophe, how will people respond when catastrophe truly arrives? This is why crying wolf is not just a fable. It is political wisdom.
My prayer is that we do not reach a day when the real wolf stands at the door and the nation shrugs. Because countries can survive policy errors. They can survive even poor politics. What they struggle to survive is the slow erosion of trust between ruler and ruled. Once that goes, even the loudest call for unity becomes an echo.
And so that old shepherd boy still warns us. Not about wolves, but about credibility. About the danger of using alarm too cheaply. About the folly of confusing applause with belief.
Because when the real wolf comes, and one day it always does, only trust will bring the villagers running. And if trust has been squandered, the joke, as in all bad politics, will finally be on us…!
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