The suave Prime Minister (PM) had been elected with a thumping majority. There was a gala dinner to celebrate his success.
The PM’s Aide-de-Camp (ADC) was an even more dashing Captain, from the elite Brigade of Guards. The ADC was recently married, and his young wife was also at the dinner. She was an absolute stunner, in a tantalizingly draped maroon and gold sari. When she turned around the PM couldn’t help but notice that there was just a small knot holding her blouse in place. It revealed a perfectly contoured back, as smooth as lucent Italian marble.
A wave of lust overwhelmed the PM. As a powerful go-getter he was used to getting whatsoever he desired. He had a shrewd scheming brain that most people mistook for that of a born achiever. He would get what he wanted. So he conspired to have his ADC packed off to where a fierce battle was raging with a hostile neighbor. He then invited the woman to his personal digs, spiked her drink and repeatedly raped her. The hapless woman had nowhere to go or no one to turn to. In any case nobody would believe her. Then she discovered that she was pregnant; and dared to convey this message to the PM.
He flew into a violent rage. His carefully crafted image would be shattered. How great would be his fall, with the Opposition baying for his blood. In crisis, his scheming brain was at its best. He recalled his ADC from the front, on the pretext of enquiring about the progress there. Without an inkling of what had transpired, the brave Captain met his PM. The latter then told him that he could take a week’s leave and spend time with his newly-wed wife. The PM could then always say that the pregnancy could be attributed to the Captain’s visit.
But the best-laid plans go awry. The Captain was a third generation officer, a man of honor. He told his boss that he could not go home and sleep with his wife while his comrades were facing hostile fire and even more hostile weather conditions. He returned to his unit at the front.
The schemer was not one to take things lying down (no pun intended). He sent for his confidante in the Military Intelligence, and told him to ensure that the captain was deployed in the first line of engagement, and killed. The “encounter” was successful. But things went horribly wrong again for the PM.
When he went to condole the martyr’s widow, shedding copious crocodile tears, she could not control herself anymore. Pointing an accusing finger at her tormentor, she screamed out that it was the PM who had got her husband killed in order to fulfill his own blood lust, and to cover up his crime. The nation was stunned.
The PM was tried under the following sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) – 299 for culpable homicide, with the intent to kill; and 376 (b)(2) for rape by a public servant who takes advantage of his official position to rape a woman in his custody. As per provisions of Sections 302 and 376 of the IPC the crime was punishable by death or life sentence, together with 10 years rigorous imprisonment. The die was cast.
The PM’s well-oiled Public Relations department now got into the act. As did his highly paid battery of defense lawyers. They argued that the PM was a good man; the beloved of the nation, and what happened was just a momentary lapse. The judge took a lenient view and let off the accused with a very light sentence.
Does this string of events sound surreal or bizarre? It isn’t.
This happened about 3000 years ago. If you have your Bible near you turn to 2 Samuel 11:1-27. It is the story of King David, and how he got his officer, Uriah the Hittite, killed; because he had already impregnated his wife Bathsheba! Do read the chapter for the gory details that are no different from my modern day juxtaposition.
David was also unrepentant. When the prophet Nathan confronted him with is sin David flew into a self-righteous rage (cf 2 Sam 12:1-15). Through Nathan this is what God conveyed to David. “Your household will never be free of the sword, since you showed contempt for me, and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite, to make her your wife” (2 Sam 12:10). “Out of your own household I shall raise misfortune for you” (2 Sam 12:11), and “”You have worked in secret but I shall work this for all Israel to see, in broad daylight” (2 Sam 12:12). The anticlimax, as with the PM, was the light “punishment” with which David got away – the death of his child a few days after it was born. The sin of the father was vested in the son. I find this a big letdown.
In fact I find this behavior of David obnoxious and dastardly. Unfortunately, in the genealogy of Jesus, he is referred to as the progeny of David, who had taken Uriah’s wife (cf Mat 1:6). Two blind men seeking healing call out to Jesus as the son of David (cf Mat 9:27). On his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday he is again greeted with the salutation “Hosanna to the son of David” (Mat 21:9). Even in the contemporary Marian litany the term “Tower of David” is used. Pardon me for saying that I find such epithets disgusting.
When I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1980 I saw the Tomb of David. After the destruction of Solomon’s Temple this tomb is now venerated as the most sacred place for the Jews. The Star of David is also the national emblem of modern day Israel. Each unto their own, but don’t count me among them. I fail to understand why David is exalted the way he is by the Jews, Christians and Muslims. The last use the Arabic equivalent – Dawood.
For us in India the most notorious Dawood is Dawood Ibrahim. Here again the second name is what we have anglicized to Abraham. This is another shocker. On two occasions Abraham gave his wife Sarah to powerful men, in order to curry favor with them. His scheming mind passed her off as his “sister’, because she was very beautiful, and had he said that she was his wife, he would have been eliminated, so that they could take his wife
The first instance is with Pharaoh in Egypt (cf Gen 12:10-20). Abraham repeats the ploy with Abimelech, the king of Gerar, in the Negev desert in modern day Gaza (cf Gen 20:1-3). In both instances Abraham is caught out and severely reprimanded. Yet we call Abraham a paragon of virtue and the father of the faith. I just don’t buy this stuff.
Perhaps Abraham told God that this was a “momentary” lapse of judgment, even though he had repeated the mistake. David may also have pleaded with Nathan that it was just a moment of passion. Surely the PM’s smart Alec defense lawyers would also have used a similar line of defense.
Perhaps Bill Clinton used the same ploy in the Monika Lewenski episode. In some countries “temporary insanity” is used as a ploy to minimize culpability. Recently Dr Zakir Naik’s defenders stated on TV that what he had said on TV might have been said in the heat of the moment. On another TV show a woman’s activist against rape unequivocally stated that rape does not happen in a moment.
These “momentary lapses” take me back about 40 years, when I met a venerable Maltese Capuchin priest at the shrine of St Jude, Jhansi. Having heard of my “conversion’ he said to me, “Do not lose in a moment of darkness what you found in a moment of light.”
When I repeated this pearl of wisdom to my mentor, Fr Deenabandhu, another Capuchin, he rubbished it saying, “Nothing happens in a moment.” Everything, whether good or bad, is a gradual build up. Rape, murder, divorce – nothing happens in a moment. We would do well to recognize the symptoms, and also avoid the circumstances, before it is too late.
Before I conclude, a small digression. According to exegetes, the Hittites were an Indo-European race that settled in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) circa 2000 BC. If Uriah was a Hittite, then in all probability, so was his wife Bathsheba. And if Jesus’ ancestry is traced to Bathsheba, then he has Indian blood in him, because Mary was also from the same house of David!
So our current PM, who excels in intrigue, double speak and rewriting history, could verily claim that Jesus is an Indian! I leave you with this precious moment of discovery! What a moment.