Bhutto's Mixed Legacy in India

NEW DELHI, India, Dec 28, 2007 — -- For India, Benazir Bhutto was the Pakistani prime minister who once urged a crowd to cut an Indian governor into little pieces. But she was also the "daughter of democracy," a kindred spirit to India's own female leaders.

Today, she is being hailed in India for how she could have changed Pakistan. And she will now forever be linked with India's ill-fated political dynasty.

Her "intent to break Indo-Pak relations out of the sterile patterns of the past was exemplary," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after Bhutto died on Thursday when a suicide bomber shot her and blew himself up outside her car. "The manner of her going is a reminder of the common dangers that our region faces from cowardly acts of terrorism and of the need to eradicate this dangerous threat."

When Bhutto's political career began, India saw the canny and charismatic leader as a secular, liberal opportunity: a prime minister who might bring less religion and less militancy to the Indian-Pakistani dialogue.

But many say that's not what happened. "She was very directly responsible for the jihad, directly inciting terrorists to intensify terrorism in India," Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, told ABC News. "I would find it very difficult to find a single element with her relationship to India that is positive and for the betterment of her country or the region."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were violently divided 60 years ago. Under Bhutto, the Taliban formed and, helped by Pakistan's intelligence service, swept across Afghanistan and later hosted Osama bin Laden. Her government helped foster anti-Indian terrorism in the disputed Kashmir region.

Today, In Sringar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, police fired tear gas at protestors who were shouting "Long Live Pakistan" and "Long Live Bhutto," Reuters reported. And in response to her death, the Indian government put its border troops on a higher state of alert and canceled the major bus and rail services to Pakistan, the Home Ministry announced.