Mr. Holbrooke's Visit to India

Mr. Holbrooke, on arriving here, will most likely face Indian wariness about how the Obama administration deals with Pakistan. It stems partly from a long and storied distrust of the American alliance with Islamabad.

But the Indian caution is all the more pronounced today because it wonders to what extent the United States will continue its robust support of the Pakistani military, which India sees as propping up jihadist organizations.

The Indian national security adviser, M. K. Narayanan, in an interview last week, praised the United States for its support in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, but signaled that India expected more.

“Few countries in recent memory have been so helpful, but I don’t think they have been able to get Pakistan to do what we finally want: deliver criminals who were responsible,” Mr. Narayanan said. “Perhaps there is still hope the United States will be able to prevail on the Pakistan government, and if not, whether there will be some penalties they are willing to impose on Pakistan, such as curbing the funding to the military, which would probably hurt them more than anything else.”

India is also worried that it could be nudged to negotiate peace with Pakistan, including on Kashmir, the nub of their 60-year-long dispute, and potentially to tamp down its extensive involvement in Afghanistan, which rankles Pakistan.

None of these issues are likely to be answered during Mr. Holbrooke’s first visit. But they signal how fraught relations can be between New Delhi and Washington even as their interests fundamentally converge: to shut down groups like Lashkar for the sake of both Indian and American security.

Policy analysts here worry that the new White House will view India in a new way, one that Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University, called “more sophisticated, less benign.”

“You won’t get the kind of carte blanche you got with the Bush administration,” Mr. Mattoo went on. “I don’t think the wow factor is going to be there.”

India has also made it clear that it does not intend to get roped into an American-led regional plan that includes making a deal on Kashmir. Mr. Mukherjee, the Indian foreign minister, said in a recent interview: “This is a problem of fighting against terror. One need not look at terror through the prism of Jammu and Kashmir.”

The State Department has said Mr. Holbrooke’s mandate does not include Kashmir.

In a report in January, however, the Asia Society warned that while the Obama administration would be wise not to mediate the dispute, it could not ignore Kashmir in its efforts to restore peace in the region.

“No consideration of South Asia’s regional stability can be contemplated without understanding the deep complexities of Kashmir,” the report noted, adding that “no American approach to the region can be whole without a careful eye and appreciation of developments in Kashmir and their impact.”

Mr. Holbrooke served as chairman of the Asia Society at the time the report was published.