In Aesop’s fables, there is this story of a lion who was once drinking water from a stream. Seeing a lamb drinking water nearby whetted his appetite. “Why are you making the water dirty?” he roared.

“But I am down the stream while you are drinking water upstream," said the lamb meekly.

“Maybe so, but you called me names last summer when I came this way,” said the lion visibly annoyed.

“It could not be me, because I was born only in spring this year,” said the lamb somewhat relieved.

At this point of time in the story, we, as kids, felt alarmed at the lamb’s relief. Because we knew when a lion feels offended by a lamb, there is reason to be alarmed.

Ditto goes for the present government when it expresses apprehension that any further probe into home minister P Chidamabaram’s alleged role into the 2G scam may “destabilise the system”! 

The government’s Aesopian pearl of wisdom dropped minutes before the supreme court reserved its order on Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy's plea for a CBI probe into Chidambaram’s alleged role into the 2G case on Monday. The government said any further probe ordered on the basis of “incomplete facts” may “destablise the system”.  

And all this while we wonder how an investigation done in public interest can be termed as “destabilising the system”; more so when the whole 2G scam which gobbled up thousands of crores of public money didn’t destablise it.

“Incomplete facts”, as mentioned by the government, on the basis of which it believes the probe is being carried out, provide all the more reasons to those in question for not worrying. However, that isn’t happening and the idea of accountability somehow is coming to threaten the system. Sounds strange. As strange as the lion taking offence at the lamb's innocence.

By the way, Aesop’s fable ended with the lion roaring that it must have been the lamb’s mother, if not him, who called him names last summer, before pouncing and making a short meal of the lamb.