Proposed for The Roundtable: the Commonwealth journal of International Affairs (SCOPUS), this article is about the nature and practice of Indian nuclear diplomacy. The only aspect of Indian foreign policy to be studied by both Realists and Postcolonials, what interlinks both is their infantilising of India by claiming it learnt nuclear diplomacy from the West. To turn to the writings of the formulators and practitioners of Indian nuclear diplomacy, from Jawaharlal Nehru to K. Subrahmanyam, however undermines both Realist and Postcolonial claims to expose what neither considers: an intellectual history for nuclear diplomacy rooted in India’s freedom struggle. The article therefore challenges IR theory, posits an alternative to it, and reveals the possibilities, and dangers, of New Delhi’s nuclear diplomacy.