The sensational helicopter raid in Abbottabad has spurred India into direct action, India style. We have refreshed our list of “wanted” men and despite Pakistan’s protestations the world now knows there is no evading India’s objectives.

We want Dawood Ibrahim and we know he lives in Karachi. We also know he keeps hopping houses just to keep our intel guys engaged in the game of keeping their address books updated. This much is clear from the rapid-fire exchanges between India and Pakistan.

Of course, we know Pakistan won’t give us Dawood. Pakistan won’t even admit that Dawood is in Karachi. So we will have to persist with Operation Dawood and ask them again. And again.

So far, so manageable. The real problem will arise if we actually succeed in tiring Pakistan out or, inshallah, in beating it into submission. Then, we will have Dawood, but we won’t know what to do with him. Unless, that is, somebody offers to trade a planeload of passengers in Kandahar or some such exotic place for him.

In the absence of any such exchange offer, we will just let the law take its course. In due course thereafter, we will let him await his turn on the death row in the eternal hope of attracting the president’s attention. For a man of action, this would be suitable torture. But it would also unnecessarily drag the president’s office into disrepute. Just to clear the president’s office of the possible charge of pay-without-work-at-taxpayers’-expense, we will let it be known that the decision of indecision is the union home ministry’s and not that of the president. Before, of course, we let it be further revealed that some other department is also involved. Years will roll by ever so gently.

Recall the case of Afzal Guru, sentenced to death by the supreme court in 2004 for the attack on Indian parliament in 2001. Even when the Delhi government finally acted on his mercy petition, it advised the centre, on the advice of his home state Jammu & Kashmir, to be prepared to deal with the law and order consequences in case the death sentence was executed. As the media reported, according to procedure the home ministry asks the state government involved to submit its opinion on this specific issue. Since the centre is in charge of Delhi Police, the Delhi government followed the procedure and advised the centre to prepare for the consequences. That was last year.

Of course, both the home ministry’s query and the Delhi government’s reply in the case amount to unwarranted, communally-motivated politicisation of the worst kind and also militate against the idea of justice. Should justice be delayed indefinitely because the government fears, or claims to fear, some kind of unrest? Is that, in turn, because Afzal Guru is a Kashmiri Muslim? In that case, why did the government bother about even going through the motions before stopping short of delivering justice? Is that not a mockery of the due process of law and justice? Or is the government really guilty of vitiating the atmosphere by politicising Afzal Guru’s regional and religious identity?

Getting the general drift of the procedures involved, Afzal Guru approached the supreme court to direct the government to shift him to a prison in his home state. If he had to wait, he figured out, he might as well do so in a place where his family members would find it more convenient to travel and meet him. The supreme court promptly sought the centre’s response.

What is there to suggest that any of this will play out differently in the case of Dawood? After all, we still haven’t heard the last of even Ajmal Amir Kasab. What is there to suggest we will indeed be able to bring Dawood to justice even if he is handed to us on a platter unlike, say, Abu Salem whose extradition from Portugal came with conditions attached? Why do we need another inmate to be fed and secured in our jail at our expense?
Add the number of men on India’s wanted list and it suddenly becomes clear that we will have 50 times the problem on our hands if all our wishes are granted.

On careful reflection, then, we don’t really want Dawood, do we?

[This column first appeared in the May 16-31 issue of Governance Now.]