Within a scant eighteen-month span, India held two national elections. The first, in November 1989, witnessed the political demise of Rajiv Gandhi and the precipitous decline of his Congress Party. The second, in May 1991, witnessed his assassination at the hands of Tamil Tiger extremists just as the Congress Party seemed poised on the threshold of

This book charts the relationship between the evolving governments of independent India and concurrent US presidential administrations. It provides an in-depth analysis of the motivations, external constraints and ideological agendas that characterized Indian-US relations.