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IOTL Nehru's Fabian ideals kept him from aligning India with the United States. This led India into an idealistic but failed attempt to form a non-aligned bloc and then into forty years of attempted socialist autarky. Meanwhile Pakistan became America's main ally in S Asia despite the fact that it was pretty ineffectual and stuck in a cycle of military coups.
In retrospect, a multiethnic nation committed to the ideals of liberal democracy would have been a perfect ally for the US in Asia. If Nehru was just a bit less idealistic how do you think an Indo-American alliance starting in the 1950s could have played out.
In some ways I think 1980s India might have taken the position that China did in the 90's, that of factory to the world. An India more open to foreign investment (coupled with American aid) might well have been played up as the new Arsenal of Democracy in the late Cold War.