Abstract
In 1974, India shocked the world by detonating a nuclear device. In the diplomatic controversy that ensued, the Canadian government expressed outrage that India had extracted plutonium from a Canadian reactor donated only for peaceful purposes. In the aftermath, relations between the two nations cooled considerably. As Conflicting Visions reveals, Canada and India’s relationship was turbulent long before the first bomb blast. Canada’s expectations of how the former British colony would behave following its independence in 1947 led to a series of misperceptions and miscommunications that strained bilateral relations for decades.