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Even though former U.S. President John F. Kennedy failed to charm him during a White House visit, journalists noticed that Nehru’s eyes lit up when his wife Jacqueline entered the room.

Later, Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi had her famous face-off with U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1971 – the latter going on record as having used the choicest of expletives over her “obduracy.”

Critics pointed out that India had missed the Greyhound bus many times. First, it was non-alignment, then a strategic partnership with the Soviet Union during the Cold War years, to counter the U.S. alliance and obsession with India’s arch foe, Pakistan.

In one fell swoop, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now turned India’s decades-old U.S. policy on its head. He not only hopped on board, but steered a whole fleet of Greyhound buses right into the Rose Garden at the White House, as if nothing else mattered.

We must wait till the dust settles to discover whether the nuclear deal with the United States was a sell-off of Indian sovereignty, or whether it will light up the country’s remotest villages at a fraction of the present cost and ensure cleaner energy.

We may ask, could India have avoided the nuclear deal? And now that it is done, what will be the fallout?

With Wall Street threatening to crush Main Street – as well as all freeways and country roads – as it did during the Great Depression; with U.S. bonds held by the Chinese and the Arabs; with unemployment figures shooting up; the nuclear deal will ensure billions of dollars worth of U.S. business. There were good incentives for the United States to wrap up the deal quickly.

Still, it was no simple thing for the United States to jump over India’s past record, ignore its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and treat it as a special case. Naturally Pakistan cried foul, wanting a similar arrangement, even though it had sold nuclear secrets clandestinely.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said about the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal: "We have always said that this is a unique arrangement based on India's needs, India's development, based on India's non-proliferation record. This has to do with India and nobody else."

With Pakistan threatening to implode and the economy tethering on the brink, the United States could not afford to lose India. South Asia would have been out of bounds for the United States if the world’s largest democracy was not engaged by the strongest democracy now.

Without India as a counterweight, the United States cannot deal with a dictatorial China that is surging out of bounds.

What were India’s alternatives? Could gas from Iran through Pakistan have taken care of India’s energy needs for the fertilizer and power sectors? On paper, it could have – but at the expense of U.S. interests.

The pipeline would have passed through Pakistan, which is held hostage by terrorists – not only the al-Qaida type, but homegrown – who are blasting away with impunity government and army institutions known to be in cahoots with the United States.

The situation turns graver by the day as unmanned U.S. drones keep killing people inside Pakistan, ratcheting up the militants’ recruitment drive.

In all likelihood, they would not have spared the gas conduit.

Pakistan is itching for a similar nuclear deal with China. From the outset, the Pakistanis tried to bring China into the Iran pipeline project, much to the displeasure of India.

Could India’s energy supply through Pakistan have been assured, considering that Kashmir is the main bone of contention between India and Pakistan, where the Line of Control has been breached more than 30 times this year?

Could Pakistan’s armed forces and Inter-Services Intelligence – still the country’s strongest institutions – be expected to change their attitude toward India, set in stone for the last 60 years?

With the Iran-Pakistan pipeline looking highly impractical, the more attractive alternative was the Indo-U.S. deal. So what are its limitations?

Could India test another nuclear bomb? She could – but the United States would suspend all supplies and take back its raw material and equipment. Does India need to test now? No, but priorities and equations could change in the future.

India’s political will and resilience will be tested if the country is asked to provide foot soldiers for any future military embroilment under a Bush-like president.

The world’s strongest democracy cannot afford to let go of the world’s largest democracy. Similarly, India cannot let go of its chance to gain the technology of the future. For now, India and the United States must be fellow travelers.