India’s Fine Balance

THE POST-9/11 AGENDA

When September 11 came, India responded rapidly and decisively. On learning of the terrorist attacks on the United States, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee convened his key advisers and they quickly decided that India would offer its full support for the U.S. war on terrorism.

Their decision was driven in part by India's own problems with terrorism. For a decade, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) had been orchestrating a nasty proxy war against India in Kashmir. Although the insurgency there was rooted in Kashmiri opposition to Indian rule, the ISI helped militant groups train, equip, and move