India enjoyed a positive image across 23 countries, with a median of 46% adults holding a favourable view of India, while a median of 34% held unfavourable views, according to an international survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, a Washington DC-based fact tank.
The report, released ahead of the gathering of world leaders for the G20 Summit in India in September, pointed to a variance between how Indians perceived Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s influence, and the views of adults in other countries. For instance, 79% of Indian respondents had a favourable view of Mr. Modi, with a majority 55% having a ‘very’ favourable view. In contrast, in other countries, a median of 37% reported having confidence in Mr. Modi. Kenyans had the highest faith in Mr. Modi, with 60% saying they trusted him to do the right thing regarding world affairs, while only 12% in Argentina said they had confidence in the Indian Prime Minister.
The report also detailed how outside India, substantial respondents in many countries did not offer an opinion on India or Mr. Modi, with 40% of U.S. adults surveyed saying they had never heard of Mr. Modi. Among Americans who had heard of him, “The prevailing sentiment is negative: 37% have little or no confidence in his ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs, compared with 21% who are confident in him.”
A similar pattern was evident with regard to perceptions of India as a rising power. While seven-in-ten Indians believed their country has recently become more influential, only 28% across 19 countries said the same. Most respondents in these counties believed that “India’s influence had not changed much in recent years (48% median),” but only 19% of Indians agreed with this view.
While perceptions of India skewed positive across the 23 countries surveyed, European attitudes toward India have turned negative over time, the report stated. Favourable views of India had declined by around 10 percentage points or more in all five European countries where past data was available. The greatest change was seen in France, where only 39% held a favourable view of India now, as compared with 70% in 2008.
Among other key findings, the survey also found that Indians stood out from their cohorts in other countries for their highly favourable views of Russia and Vladimir Putin, and unfavourable views of China. “Whereas a median of only 14% across 22 countries have a positive view of Russia, a 57% majority of Indians see Russia favourably,” the report noted. When it came to China, India was “the only middle-income country surveyed where a majority has unfavourable views of China”. In contrast, the U.S. was seen more favourably in India (65%) than in many of the countries surveyed.
One continuing trend from previous surveys was the persistence of negative attitudes toward Pakistan in India. The survey found that around 75% of Indian adults held unfavourable views about Pakistan, with 57% holding a ‘very’ unfavourable opinion. This pattern has held since 2013, with unfavourable views of Pakistan never dipping below 60%, the report observed.
Interestingly, while Mr. Modi emerged as the politician who commanded the highest percentage (80%) of favourable views within India, 60% of Indians saw Rahul Gandhi in a favourable light while 34% viewed him unfavourably.
The Pew Center report is based on a nationally representative survey of 2,611 adults in India, 3,756 American adults, and 24,674 adults in other countries from Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, North America and Latin America. The surveys were conducted during February-May, 2023.
