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What Shapes Global Views of India?

A recent Pew survey found that 45 percent of respondents in 36 countries held a favorable view of India, while another 41 percent held a negative view. But the results varied widely by country.

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........

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