PEW survey finds 80% of Indians gung-ho about Modi

About 80 per cent of Indians have a favourable view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and around seven in 10 Indians believe their country has recently become more influential, according to a survey by the PEW Research Center.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network Mission Control Complex to meet scientists of the ISRO team involved in the Chandrayaan3 mission, Bengaluru, July 26, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

The survey, released ahead of the G20 Summit, also noted that public opinion of India was generally positive across the world, with a median of 46 per cent reporting favourable views of India as compared to 34 per cent unfavourable views. Sixteen per cent did not share an opinion at all.

Views of India are most positive in Israel, where 71 per cent say they have a favourable view of the country, the report said.

Pew said the survey was conducted from February 20 to May 22, among 30,861 adults in 24 countries, including 2,611 from India, to examine global views of Prime Minister Modi, the scope of India's global power and Indians' views of other countries.

About eight in 10 Indians report 'favourable' views of Modi, including a majority (55 per cent) with a 'very favourable' view, according to the survey result released on Tuesday.

This is Modi's second term as Prime Minister and he is also seeking a third term in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Only a fifth of Indians expressed an unfavourable opinion of Modi in 2023, the Pew survey found.

Responding to the results of the Pew survey, the BJP said the popularity of Prime Minister Modi remained intact.

'The popularity of Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi certainly remains intact! Majority of people in India and across the world believe that India's global influence is getting stronger!' the official handle of BJP said in a post on platform X, formerly Twitter.

It added that the Pew survey 'stands as a testament to the above statements'.

'Indian adults are more likely to believe India's power is on the rise. Around seven in ten Indians believe their country has recently become more influential.

'This stands in comparison with a 2022 survey conducted across 19 countries, where a median of only 28 per cent said the same,' Pew said.

According to the report, about half of Indians (49 per cent) say that the influence of the US is getting stronger in recent years, and 41 per cent say the same about Russia.

Meanwhile, Indians' views on China's influence are somewhat more mixed, it said.

The G20 will be held in New Delhi on September 9-10.