New Delhi: Almost 70% of Indians feel that India’s influence in the world is getting stronger, a survey by the think tank Pew Research Center has found.
As for the rest of the world, a median of 46% of residents in 23 countries surveyed by Pew said that they had a favourable view of India. On the other hand, medians of 34% and 16% had unfavourable and no views on India respectively.
Data from a survey Pew conducted in 19 countries last year says that a median of 28% of people said that India’s influence in the world was getting stronger.
“In those 19 countries, respondents were most inclined to say that India’s influence had not changed much in recent years (48% median), but only 19% of Indians agree with this view,” Pew said in its latest report.
Out of the countries Pew conducted surveys in this year, respondents from Israel had the most positive views on India, with 71% of the respondents registering a favourable view.
Pew added that Israelis with right-wing political beliefs reported more positive views on India than Israelis on the left side of the spectrum.
In the US, 51% of the respondents had a positive view on India. However, liberals were 10 percentage points more likely than their conservative counterparts to view India favourably.
The think tank has also found that while India is generally viewed favourably by the rest of the world – including by residents of G20 countries, delegations from which India will host next week in New Delhi – residents of some European countries and of South Africa see India less positively than they did in the past.
“Across these select countries, views of India have generally become more negative since the question was last asked,” Pew said, adding that it observed the opposite phenomenon in Mexico and Nigeria.
It also found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is viewed less favourably by some parts of the world than India as a country. A median of 40% of respondents said that they did not have confidence in Modi to do the right thing regarding world affairs.
Pew did not ask European respondents about their confidence in Modi.
Indian respondents, though, feel very confidently about their prime minister. Seventy-nine percent of Indians who were polled by Pew on their opinion of Modi reported a favourable view, with 55% of all Indians saying they had a ‘very favourable’ view.
A total of 20% of Indian respondents had an overall unfavourable view of Modi.
Pew said that young adults from India were more likely than older respondents to answer its questions on Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, both of whom along with Rahul Gandhi do not command ‘very favourable’ views as the prime minister does.
And regarding Indian respondents, the think tank also found that men were more likely than their female counterparts to believe that India was becoming a stronger force in the world, although the difference between the two in terms of percentage points (71% and 65% respectively) is not high.
Thirty thousand people across 24 countries took part in Pew’s latest survey, which was conducted between February and March this year, Reuters reported.