NEW YORK — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation brings to an end one of the more interesting curiosities of subcontinental politics: For more than four years, Pakistan had a president who was born in India, while India had a Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) who was born in Pakistan.
Since the two countries' separation is now more than six decades old, that anomaly is unlikely to be repeated. But it is not the only reason Indians are greeting Musharraf's exit with mixed feelings.
Musharraf was someone who was easy to hate across the border. He had, after all, risen to the top of the military on the back of the Pakistani Army's Islamist elements, who came into their own (in what had previously been a rather Anglophile, British- and American-trained officer corps) during the decade-long reign of the fundamentalist military ruler Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.
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