G20: How the World Views India
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
In the run-up to the G20 summit, Indian universities, think tanks, and other such outfits have organised more seminars, generated more papers, hosted more lectures than any other G-20 country ever managed to do over the past 15 years.
A chosen set of government intellectuals were grouped into what was called the T-20, for Think Tank Twenty, and they have travelled around India and the world lecturing, holding seminars and selling the idea that ‘Bharat’ (India) is the ‘Vishwa Guru’ (Global Guru) and that we believe in our G-20 motto – ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’.
India not ‘getting stronger’
Given all the hype and hoopla, Sanjaya Baru (political commentator and policy analyst) writes “it is not surprising that a whopping 68 per cent of Indians surveyed by the American opinion polling agency Pew Research Centre said that India was ‘getting stronger’.”
Baru looks at how the the world looks at India. “The most favourable view is out of Australia, our newly-found partner. Down under 36 per cent of Australians think that India is getting stronger, but 54 per cent feel we are where we were, and 10 per cent think that we are actually weaker today. Most Europeans and East Asians, Japanese and South Koreans especially, more or less share the Australian perception. Only about a third polled in the United Kingdom think that India is getting stronger. Fifty per cent think nothing much has changed.
“Perceptions get worse among friends. Israeli data reports only 29 per cent feeling India is getting stronger and 50 per cent not convinced, with 11 per cent thinking we are getting weaker.”
In the United States, "a mere 23 per cent think that India is getting stronger. 64 per cent are not convinced and 11 per cent feel we are getting weaker. Opinion nearer home is even worse. In Singapore and Malaysia only 23 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, think India is getting stronger, while 28 per cent (Singapore) and 27 per cent (Malaysia) think India is getting weaker. The data from even closer home would not be any more flattering.”
So, “if Pew is reporting a not so favourable view of India outside the country, that too in friendly countries, then it is at least in part associated with the less than favourable view people outside India have of the Prime Minister. So, while we may be patting ourselves on our backs because we think our country has ‘arrived’, being a G-20 summit venue, others may have a less than sanguine view.”
