Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans/ When the age of peace and plenty has begun./ We must send them steel and oil and coal and everything they need/ For their peaceable intentions can be always guaranteed/ …Let’s let them feel they’re swell again and bomb us all to hell again,/ But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun.

— Noel Coward (circa 1944)

Around the time the king of the music hall parodied the forgiveness of a minuscule section of Britons and incurred the displeasure of the BBC for doing so, a furious controversy erupted over a film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, by Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. The film centred on the life of a fictional general, Clive ‘Sugar’ Wynee-Candy, a once-dashing winner of the Victoria Cross, who in his twilight years found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his archaic sense of military honour with the imperatives of the ongoing ‘total war’. What irked critics was the depiction of the general’s abiding friendship with Kretschmar-Schuldorf, a Prussian officer of the Kaiser’s army in World War I, who fled Germany after the Nazis took over and lived as an émigré in England. Compared to the blundering General ‘Sugar’ Candy, the Prussian came across as cool, dignified, compassionate, charming and unflappable — the epitome of what was later to be caricatured as the Good German.

There is an astonishing sense of déjà vu that confronts any half-detached observer of the post-26/11 mood in India. After the attack on Parliament seven years ago, Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke of an aar paar ki ladai with Pakistan and ordered full military mobilization. This time too, India has swung between decrying war and keeping “all options open”. Yesterday’s candles of sadbhavna have been snuffed out by the new torches of assertive nationalism, although many hearts continue to bleed for the Good Pakistanis who mean us no harm.

One of the main casualties of this national anger is the belief that Pakistan and India have a common destiny. Bolstered by elaborate people-to-people contacts, cricket matches and cultural exchanges, it was possible for the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to claim at the Havana non-aligned movement summit in September 2006 that India and Pakistan were co-victims of terrorism. Coming within months of the Mumbai train bombings that killed 250 people, this was an exemplary expression of dhimmitude.

A few days before the Mumbai attack, the Pakistani president, Asif Zardari, repeated the hackneyed formulation that there was a part of Pakistan that was forever Indian and vice versa. Despite the anger in Indian official circles at the Inter-Services Intelligence’s involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, the national hearts melted instantly. There was a flurry of punditry suggesting that Zardari was India’s newest best bet after Pervez Musharraf.

In hindsight, two factors kept Indo-Pakistan relations on an even keel for five years before 26/11. The first — which took shape after Musharraf lowered the scale of infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir in 2004 — was the realization that Islamist terrorism in India had a home-grown dimension. India couldn’t just blame the ISI; it had also to look within.

Secondly, the revival of democracy earlier this year had a euphoric effect and bolstered Pakistan’s sagging self-esteem. The articulate Pakistani elite made a persuasive case for the world to show generosity and allow democracy to undercut bigotry. The “give Pakistani democracy a chance” chant effectively put a gag on those who insisted that Pakistan was the ugly carbuncle ready for pricking.

Ever since the West threw its weight behind the peace process, the strategic community in India has been divided between those in search of the “good” Pakistani and those who believed that Pakistan was inherently “bad”. That there was a section in Pakistan disgusted by the drift to extremism and anxious to rekindle Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s vision of a modern, Muslim (but not Islamic) country wasn’t in doubt. But were these voices of enlightenment akin to the Good Germans under Hitler? Were they consequential enough to impose correctives on State policy? Or were they the “useful idiots” expediently wheeled out during moments of international exasperation to tell the world that ordinary Pakistanis were innocent of crimes that were invariably the responsibility of someone else?

The issue has come to a head in the aftermath of the 26/11 attack. Liberal Pakistanis insist that they were as shocked and as outraged as Indians at the brutality of the terrorists. They may well be right. Yet, why has Islamabad been so squeamish in admitting that the Mumbai attack was an operation originating in Pakistan? Why has it equated the criminality of “non-State players” with the sovereignty and national honour of Pakistan?

While the world was extremely generous in extending a helping hand to a fledgling democracy in Pakistan, it expected the democratic government to be responsive in addressing global security concerns. There was never any suggestion that either President Zardari or the late Benazir Bhutto’s friends, who occupy high office in Pakistan, were responsible for either the Mumbai attack or the Kabul bombing in September. The finger of suspicion was always pointed at jihadi groups and the ISI.

The feeling that Pakistan was fast emerging as the new epicentre of global terrorism and threatening the security of countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Britain and India, should have triggered a domestic churning. It should have offended the self-respect of the Pakistani elite at least to hear their country described as a “migraine”. Yet, there have been few voices of consequence from within Pakistan willing to tell the political and military establishment that enough is enough, and that it is time to flush out the jihadis and the rogues who run them. All we have heard is talk about making steady, incremental gains in the fight against fanatics. Like the Good German, the Good Pakistani has couched his acquiescence in either silence or sophistry.

It is the sophistry that tells the tale of denial. After 26/11, there were many intellectuals from the South Asian diaspora eager to shed tears for a Bombay they imagined had perished in the fires at the Taj. They filled many column inches of iconic liberal publications. Curiously, their remorse was invariably couched with gratuitous references to how badly India treats its Muslim minority, how Babri Masjid and Gujarat have kindled a desire for revenge, and how Kashmir remains the core dispute. Cut out the mandatory allusions to the Sea Lounge at the Taj and the vibrancy of Bollywood, and you are left with the stark judgment: India had it coming.

The Good German claimed ignorance of the concentration camps and the Final Solution. The Good Pakistani is better informed. He has seen the devastation of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad; he has watched the siege of the Lal Masjid; and he has experienced the growing hold of religious bigots on Pakistani society. He knows that Pakistan is sleep-walking its way to disaster. Yet, when it comes to India, ordinary decencies have effortlessly yielded to the brusque message for India: you had it coming.

Earlier, the Good Pakistani was a social distraction, an embellishment of liberal Hindu self-flagellation. Today, he has become a red herring and a diversion from the urgent business of confronting the threat frontally. With infinite patience, India tried for long to not be “beastly” to the Good Pakistani. It was a dodgy investment. When we called in our IOUs, the Good Pakistani melted into the crowd and became just another Pakistani. When it came to the crunch, the Good Pakistani chose Bad Pakistan.