It’s a change of heart that reflects how low India-Pakistan relations have sunk in recent months _ and the fears that they haven’t yet hit bottom with Pakistan being blamed for blowing up India’s embassy in Afghanistan and repeated shootings along the disputed frontier in Kashmir.

The violence is threatening to turn back the clock on the rivals’ four-year peace process, and a growing number of Indians are saying it has forced them to face a hard truth about Pakistan: They’d rather deal with a powerful dictatorship than a weak democracy.