India wary but calm in face of crisis in neighboring Pakistan

No country should have more to fear from Pakistan's slide toward instability than India.

In the six decades since an independent India and Pakistan rose from the flames of the bloody partition of the subcontinent, the South Asian rivals have stared at each other across heavily armed frontiers with implacable hostility, fought three wars and engaged in tit-for-tat atomic tests.

Yet as Pakistan has stumbled in recent months from a military dictatorship to a state of emergency, to the uncertainty in the wake of the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, India's reactions have been tempered _ even calm.

India put its troops on a …