Containing India is an obnoxious, disgusting idea for whomever in the U.S is advocating and implementing it. India is not expansionist, militaristic, colonising, totalitarian or dictatorial. India is not imposing culture or language on anyone. And India is positively not promoting anyone else's ideology and system( Russia' s or China's or Iran's, Saudi) all over the world. So the hostility of whatever degree from these institutions, and by extension the deep American state, has got to be from the long term concern and fear of inter- mercantalist competition, and the real possibility of other developing countries being inspired by India's example. Less profits and market share for U.S companies in a variety of sectors. The same thing the Brits didn't like about India.
another explanation could be, outside of a few institutions like pentagon, majority of murican institutions have moved away from pragmatism/realism to idealism as basis of their institutional core values, this shift accelerated during unipolar moment, the delicate balance between realism and idealism has been heavily skewed in favour idealism. this also explains disconnect between their own institutional opinions and ground realities.
in india's case it's a trifecta,
cold war purists don't like India ,
abrahamic lobbies don't like India,
left liberals don't like India.
all three are powerful lobbies within U.S, and it is a multi million $ industry in itself. it's a content creation (primarily literature) industry, so it needs to keep creating content to sustain their revenue flow.
in the larger scheme of things, India does not occupy murican policy mindspace, simply because neither GoI nor Indian industry spends much money on lobbying within U.S. in absence of which, the incumbent anti-India lobbies have a much larger voice. India is just one of the many chessboards the super power is playing the game with.
then the question arises, should India give hafta to murican "perception management" vasooli gang ?
no matter how much is spent, domestic lobbies can outspend Indian spending.
pakistan used to spend a lot in U.S for kashmir cause lobbying, when pakistan itself is in real poly crisis all that spending, all that decades of cultivating assets on murican soil were of no help. which can be interpreted as no matter how much is spent, it is going to be a transactional relationship.