File photo of Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi's crushing victory in the general elections presents an awkward task for Western powers who shunned him for years but see New Delhi as a crucial partner.
US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders invited the incoming prime minister to visit in congratulatory telephone calls and stressed common interests with the world's largest democracy after Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won India's widest victory in three decades.
The same governments until recently were cautious in dealing with Mr Modi over allegations that he did not do enough to stop the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat on his watch as Chief Minister. The United States in 2005 refused him a visa on human rights grounds.
A Supreme Court inquiry has said there is no evidence that Mr Modi fuelled the 2002 violence.
US officials "are painfully aware that they are at a real disadvantage by not having a relationship with Modi or really knowing him," said Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding, "They are going to try to remedy that as quickly as possible."
As signs grew that Mr Modi was cruising to victory, the United States rushed to undo the bad blood.
The outgoing US ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, met with him in February, and the State Department has made clear he will have no visa problem as prime minister.
Other Western nations moved more swiftly to court Mr Modi, with the British and French ambassadors visiting him well before the elections.
A confidential US diplomatic cable written during the 2005 visa row, released by the website WikiLeaks, warned that a BJP with Mr Modi in charge would be "more anti-American and less cooperative with the US."
But the warming of the once-distant US-India relationship largely took place when the BJP was last in power during the 1998-2004 premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Mr Modi, who has little foreign policy experience, recently stated that international relations should be based on interests rather than individuals -- a comment that, US diplomats hope, indicates he will not hold a grudge.
His top campaign promise has been on the economy, and he courted Western investors in Gujarat even while governments shunned him.
Mr Modi's sweeping majority would allow the government to push through business-friendly changes, although the BJP has criticised the outgoing government's key reform of opening India to foreign retailers such as Walmart.
The BJP has won a clear majority in the Lok Sabha or lower house with 282 seats; with its allies it has 336 seats.