Pew has another excellent survey out looking at a variety of countries’ public opinion toward the US. Luckily this one includes India. What do Indians make of the US and Joe Biden?
First off, public opinion toward Biden is overall very positive, continuing an upward trend since 2017 (and returning to close to the Obama-era high):
Second, Indians have a generally positive opinion of the US in general:
Third, an unusually high percentage of Indians think the US considers their country’s interests (Indians also overwhelmingly think the US contributes to peace and stability around the world, at 70%):
Fourth, Indians are impressed with American universities and unimpressed with American media and entertainment (note: I agree!):
The trends here look very good for the United States and US-India relations. They are also a useful reminder – including to me – that the daily outrage on twitter (how dare the US send Uzra Zeya to Delhi (to, it turns out, talk about the Indo-Pacific strategy)! Blinken’s comments on human rights will turn Indian opinion against the US! Biden is trying to soft regime change Modi!) seem to be largely irrelevant to mass public opinion. They may matter to a (likely very small) subset of the public, of course, and that can be meaningful, but most people aren’t paying attention or experiencing radical swings in opinion. The same is true in the US – 40% of Americans haven’t heard of Modi one way or another while general opinion toward India seems pretty stably positive. Most of this day-to-day stuff that occupies wonks and twitterati and journalists and academics is irrelevant to public opinion. It may be relevant in other meaningful spheres (legislatures, NGOs, The Discourse, etc) but it’s important to keep some perspective.
Paul Staniland 