Those of us are occupationally obliged to devise and plan for the worst case terrorist contingencies still consider the threat of nuclear black mail a bit of a remote possibility. And it is just as well , because pursuing the consequences of evena hypothetical possibility like this wouldn't do much good either to the morale or temper of the harassed security agencies. But Dominique Lappire and Larry Collins have dared to tackle precisely this imaginative scenario in their book ,The Fifth Horseman, in the deadpan serious idiom of reportage.

A group of determined terrorist have threatened to detonate a nuclear device; either concede the following charter of demands or else? The American administration is in an excruciating dilemma; try and get to the terrorist or should they start evacuating the population? In the end -as the concession to frayed and exhausted sensibilities- the detectives close in on the terrorist group just in time.Can we afford to treat it as a mere fictional account to be read by the parlour fire like the old detective novel, sure in the knowldege that it is just not possible? Is it alarmist ? but perhaps there is just that wee bit cause for alarm. It is an open secret that quantities of weapons grade plutonium have just disappeared. The various atomic energy commissions are supposed to be keeping a very meticulous account of every micro gram of the deadly stuff but hundred of pounds of them are not reconciled in their ledgers. The technology for fabrication of a weapon is dangerously accessible now. Undergrads and clever technicians can assemble crude workable bombs. The anxiety has not been alleviated a bit by the disintegration of Soviet regime. The control of the weapons is in a parlous state of confusion. The more dispersed they are, specially and potentially unstable regions, the more vulnerable the world is to their use in terrorists black mails.

Perhaps it is a sign of the randomness of the days we are living in that one may not have done anything to deserve retribution and yet be blown up by a bomb planted in a plane, or be snuffed out of existence in a terrorist shoot out downtown. Everything from liberation of fatherland to a sense of ennui or plain boredom may be motive enough. After every terrorist outrage the police goes on red alert. More and more people are put on the list of people to be protected; surveillance becomes more pervasive , frisking more ruthless. It is diminishing not to be trusted or to take others to trust. While the security apparatus gets increasingly paranoid , to keep looking for terrorist threats all over, in the civilians it may lead to psychic damage. One cannot but commiserate with one's neighbour who is on the terrorist hit list. And yet, when the tents come up, with the accompanying quorum of armed guards and sniffer dogs , search lights and barbed wire fencing , one cannot but help feeling that one has been gratuitously trapped in someone else's misfortune. Life's little pleasure recede out of reach. The late night stroll, or lone gallavnating cannot be undertaken without being questioned by or raising the suspicions of the guards. The entire access to and retreat from the neighbourhood is thoroughly guarded and kept under watch 24 hours a day,seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. And yet the security lapses do occur. The exasperated and distrustful citizens , fervently hope that the police were more efficient. Their prayers seem to have been heard-not here ,not yet anyway but-in Heinreich Boll's grim and disturbing novel, The Safety Net. It recounts the story of a family trying to devise ways of getting on with the business of livimg in the face of persistent and very real terrorists threat. The terrorists have nothing against the newly elected president of the "association", Fritz Tolm, and his family as such. He serves to clothe in flesh and blood the entire concept of the "enemy". The threat is undefined , unknown , yet potent and perpetually present. The members of the family themselves are not yet above the suspicion and are never absent from the thoughts of the protectors-the thoroughly efficient security apparatus. As the 'safety net' is spread further and wider to apprehend the assailant before he strikes intelligence is received that the grand child of Fritz may be used as human bomb.

Meanwhile , even in this loveless world-Sabine the daughter of Fritz gets "impregnated" outside her marriage. It is in keeping with the whole atmosphere of the novel where even couples cannot talk but in whispers, have to accompanied even to the loo, that the whole issue is treated only as a branch of security. Than anxious parents of the girl surmise "only the security people can know who the father of our grand child ,is if the surveillance is really functioning ".the lover incidentally is Herbert Hendlar , her guard , pointing to the ironic fact that in such a sanitised security environment the only scope for adultery is with the policeman protector. The artistic grace of Heinrich Boll saves the book from the tawdriness and the characters achieve human dignity rallying to each other's help, bonding in affection even in this most inhuman setting. But it surely is a demeaning world here in order to live one has to sacrifice many of the privileges, which distinguishes the animal from he human self .So when a candidate for elections in Punjab recently demanded that his security guard be changed. He and his wife were forced to share a single room tenement with him and he suspected an amorous liaisons was developing between his wife and the guard , one begins to suspect that protectors may become prosecutors or physical safety may have to be bought in exchange for certain inalienable values.

It is just the crass indignity of life under terrorist threat ;untouched by any heroism , unredeemed by the romance of the rich mighty. We are living in a society which is somehow coming unhinged. The world is clearly getting divided into targets of attempted assassination and potential assassins. That way it works of to the advantage of both the terrorist organisations and the security apparatus.Because it develops into some kind of a gladiatorial contest .The terrorists hog all the media attention while the security apparatus corners a large part of the resources of the community.

Whether they actually engineer alarms to maximise their advantage in the power system is not yet known but as a possibility it does crop up in the deeper earnest of jest in the book, Yes Minister . The minister Rt.HON.Jim Hacker, M.A., is determined to do away with the phone tapping because he thought -and he is no lone eccentric in thinking so-that it didn't help anyone but the self serving civil service.As ill luck would have it (the subsequent course of events hints at more contrived co-incidence)it is revealed that the name of the minister figured on a hit list of the terrorists .Jim Hacker Minister, DAA, who had been such an ardent advocate of the freedom and the privacy of the people begins to see the logic of overt and covert surveillance .He acquiesces in - and later starts considering it in dispensable- the protection of the Special Branch. After that his life is no longer his own. Even the most trifling decisions are taken with due regard to security consideration and of course the convenience of the police team protecting him.

The poor Minister has been reduced to such a bundle of nerves by the threat of the assassinations and gun shots that in a restaurant he crashes under the table trying to take evasive action at the sound of the uncorking of a champagne bottle . The episode may be a dramatisation for effect but one keeps bumping into such high and mighty personages - surrounded by high strung security guards - comical in their concern for the security of their charge ,disturbing the calm of hospital wards and educational institutions . To remain unprotected or to be consigned to the security of personnel other than the NSG Black Cat commandos is considered erosion of status and importance. Threats are regularly exaggerated even imagined to get security classifications upgraded. Soon it seems all the high and mighty personages and potential objects of terrorist assassination will be herded together in high security areas under the ever present of watchful eyes of C.C.Tvs and alert security personnel.

"Big Brother is watching you" may have been meant as a fore warning of the shape of things to come in a totalitarian -Police state . It had a life of its own as an injunction and a warning but in a crazy world the ORWELLIAN nightmare is taking on the shades of a comforting reassurance .

p.s-written in 1993 in the immediate aftermath of the Bombay blasts

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