ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the ambiguous Indian assessment of the United States political establishment and of its external policies shaped India's responses on major issues in the estranged bilateral relationship. In March 1933, President Roosevelt assumed office and, as Jawaharlal Nehru observed, the new US president was immediately faced by a tremendous banking crisis in addition to the great depression that was going on. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 resulted in the Congress Party, led by Mahatma Gandhi, and which spearheaded the struggle for independence, seeking greater concessions from British in return for its support of the war effort. India under Nehru was facing a serious food shortage, and averting famine, or even near famine, was a political imperative. While India was formally neutral in the Cold War, it began to develop close ties with the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s. The US-led Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) sought to restrict the global nuclear weapons club to five countries.
