India-US relations. What does the Indian public think?

nov 6th, 2007

interesting study.

and it's the center for the study of india, not of that crock 'south asia'. thank you, upenn and madan lal sobti.

turns out indians are generally positive towards the US. i am surprised by the warmth towards japan, but pleased too -- that means the average indian knows where his best bets are, obvious not with china. and i am delighted to hear that even in WB and Kerala, communist strongholds, china comes a poor second. that shows the brainwashing hasn't succeeded fully. yet.

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From: n



This will qualify as "mainstream research on India".  May be useful to cite. Sample size is reasonable by statistical metrics:

" we conducted the largest ever random, nationally representative survey of foreign policy attitudes of Indians in 2005-06 covering 212,563 households. The survey instrument was modeled on an annual randomly sampled survey of foreign policy attitudes of Beijing residents from 1998 to 2004. However, in addition, our survey design allowed us to measure the response of nine (six in urban and three in rural India) specific socio-economic (SEC) groups, defined by education and occupation. "

See this link for the full articleand figures in colorful glory:

http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/india/index.html

India-US relations. What does the Indian public think?

Devesh Kapur
11.05.2007

With the India-United States nuclear deal facing an uncertain future, there has been a spate of analysis on the domestic opposition to the deal from within India. Security hawks and sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party worry that the deal may constrain India's strategic options in the future. And for India's Left the most disturbing implication of the deal is that it will bind India more closely to the US.

Commentators in favor argue that the BJP's opposition to the deal seems more the result of the narcissism of small differences, payback for the Congress's carping when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government conducted India's nuclear tests. In both cases each party achieved what the other had been diligently pursuing when in power, and then found the prize snatched away by its rival at the last minute. Not surprisingly, both incidents have led to acute frustration masquerading as principle! And the Left parties could either be acting as the cat's paw for the Chinese or simply being consistent (or, as some would say, pathological) in their opposition to the US. But where does the Indian public stand? What do Indians think about issues with foreign policy implications – and in particular about the US?

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