What Shapes Global Views of India?
Recently, Pew Research Center released a survey of public opinion on India across 36 countries. The results were decisively mixed. Between February and May of 2026, a median of 45 percent of individuals polled had a favorable view of India, while 41 percent had an unfavorable view. However, the results varied greatly across countries.
These have a number of explanations peculiar to each country, but on the whole chalked up to a balance — different in each country — of geopolitics, people-to-people relationships, and ideological preferences.
For example, 71 percent of British people had a favorable view of India, one of the highest in the world. The United Kingdom, of course, has one of the longest and deepest relationships with India of any country in the world, having ruled India for two centuries. Indians, along with their cuisine, culture, and arts, have been familiar to Britons for generations. This high rate of favorability indicates that British views of India cross ideological lines and are shaped more by history and people-to-people relationships than mere geopolitics or the government in power in India. Indian-origin individuals are well-integrated in Britain and have even risen to the post of prime minister.
Moving beyond Britain, opinions toward India tend to be favorable in most European countries, such as Germany (63 percent), Italy (55 percent), and France (50 percent). European countries generally have little ideological, racial, or religious tension with India, and see it as a fellow democracy and Western-adjacent ally vis-à-vis China or the Islamic world. In the case of Germany, in particular, there is a strong philosophical and intellectual affinity for India dating back to the 19th century.
Other states that reported strong favorable views toward India included countries like Japan and Israel — at 55 and 60 percent, respectively — which have long-standing, strong geopolitical ties with India. Other countries, such as Kenya and Thailand, like Britain, have significant Indian populations and a history of Indian mercantile and cultural influence, mediated through centuries of Indian Ocean trade. In Kenya, for example, Indians have recently been recognized as the country’s 44th tribe. In both cases, there are no strong geopolitical and ideological tensions.
Opinions toward India are more mixed in its neighborhood, in Spanish-speaking countries, and in the Islamic world. This mixture demonstrates the complexity of individual relationships toward India. The Spanish-speaking world, for example, has a long-standing, though not universal, affinity for leftist and anti-colonial causes, and its support for Palestine may be reflected in its unfavorable views toward India. On top of this, there is no large Indian diaspora in Latin America. This may be why many Latin Americans simply had no opinion of India.
Throughout the Arab world, the overwhelming majority of individuals see the Palestinian cause as pivotal and reject the recognition of Israel. India’s close relationship with Israel may explain why its unfavorability rating of 72 percent in the West Bank is one of the highest in the world.
On the other hand, the Arab world and the overall Muslim ummah are generally indifferent toward the Kashmir issue, despite attempts by Pakistan to link the two issues. However, Pakistan’s close ties with Turkiye, along with the latter’s view of itself as the guardian of the Muslim community, could explain why only 15 percent of Turks have a favorable view of India, one of the lowest in the world.
It should come as no surprise, given their history of mutual enmity, that the country with the highest unfavorable opinion of India is Pakistan, at 91 percent. According to another Pew survey, both Indians and Pakistanis see each other as their greatest threat, ahead of China, Israel, the United States, and other options.
On the other hand, slightly more individuals in Muslim-majority Indonesia have a favorable view of India than an unfavorable view: 50 percent to 47 percent. This may reflect long-standing ties between the two countries dating to their joint leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Even in neighboring Bangladesh, which has seen a downgrade in ties since the ouster of the pro-India Awami League government in 2024, only a small majority, 51 percent, has an unfavorable opinion of India. A significant number of Bangladeshis have a positive opinion of India, reflecting a history of close ties, a large Hindu minority, strong secular movements, and India’s role in Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan.
Rounding up India’s neighbors is Sri Lanka, which has the highest net favorability toward India of all the countries surveyed, at 79 percent, reflecting India’s recent economic assistance toward the country.
American Views
American views toward India merit special evaluation, given the importance of the relationship between these two great powers, the largest democracies in the world. The United States has the largest Indian diaspora in the world, and the two countries have deepened their geopolitical relationship over the past two decades. Nonetheless, surprisingly, 50 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of India, more than the 45 percent who viewed it favorably. Among Americans, 50 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of Republicans viewed India favorably, meaning that liberal-leaning individuals were slightly more likely to do so. Furthermore, younger Americans viewed India less favorably than older ones. Taken together, these indicate that favorable views of India have been declining over time. Why?
For many older Americans, India was the land of yoga and a place hippies went to find themselves. The few Indians they met would have come from a highly educated, Westernized stratum. Today, on the other hand, there are millions of Indians in the United States, many of whom are less Westernized than their predecessors. This has led to a surge of xenophobia on the right, especially among White and Christian nationalists. Many on the right also accuse Indians of taking high-paying jobs that ought to go to native-born Americans. Simply put, many right-leaning Americans do not like Indians and associate India with a number of negative attributes, seeing it as a land of dirt and rape. Even policymakers, who should know better, are less warm toward India now that India has revealed itself to be less friendly to business than expected and American geopolitical priorities have moved away from balancing against China.
But the American left has also become less positive toward India because it has come to see India increasingly through the lens of Hindu nationalism. While the ideology of Hindutva has certainly influenced many elements of the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, it is not the only facet of Indian life. Liberal-leaning individuals tend to be more likely than conservatives to get their news from legacy media such as the New York Times and National Public Radio (NPR). Major Indian publications — even those with ideological leanings — at least report on a broad range of developments in India: one can read about new, ritzy infrastructure as well as politicians caught soliciting bribes. However, publications like the New York Times must necessarily curate content for their domestic audiences, which are far more likely to identify with stories about pushing back against authoritarianism than about local issues. Hence, a glance at the New York Times’s articles on India will reveal a disproportionate number of pieces on youth protests, minority issues, Kashmir, censorship, and economic mismanagement. As a result, India, or at least the current Indian government, has acquired an increasingly negative reputation amongst many younger, liberal-leaning Americans.
Pew’s recent survey on global attitudes toward India reveals a diverse and mixed set of opinions. Depending on the country, they range from very positive to very negative, but in each case, these views are a function of that country’s interaction with Indians, geopolitical imperatives, or ideological questions.
