Americans' views of India have fallen. Online anti-Indian posts have surged faster

Americans' views of India as a country have become less positive over the past four years, according to long-running national polls. Gallup's annual World Affairs survey was conducted Feb. 2-16, 2026, among 1,001 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 points. It found that 61% had a favorable opinion of India and 30% an unfavorable one. The share with a favorable view peaked at 77% in 2022, after a 76% reading in 2021. The 2026 figure is 16 points below that 2022 high. Pew Research Center's spring 2026 Global Attitudes Survey found a narrower and less even change. In that poll, 45% of U.S. adults viewed India favorably and 50% unfavorably. Pew said those ratings are among the lowest since it began asking the question in 2008. Those questions measure opinions of India the country, not of Indian people or of Indian Americans.

A separate body of research records a sharp rise in anti-Indian content on social media, especially on X, after December 2024. That evidence is real. It does not, by itself, prove that social media caused the public's impression of Indians to turn much less positive. Polls of the country started falling before the late-2024 surge. Favorable views of India rose in the United Kingdom and held or improved slightly in Canada. A Carnegie Endowment survey of Indian Americans found personal discrimination rates that were stable across 2020, 2024 and 2026. Nearly half of respondents still said they often saw racist posts targeting Indians.

This report separates three things that are often mixed together. The first is views of India as a country. The second is public opinion of Indian people and Indian immigrants, where such polls exist. The third is the volume of hostile posts online. The report also reviews what Indian Americans say about discrimination and what official hate-crime statistics show. It covers how advocacy groups and researchers describe the link. A related 567 Politics report examines The Economist's argument that cheap data and social media have hurt India's image. That story finds official figures back India's internet boom, while global polls of the country show a mixed picture rather than a simple collapse. This article focuses on the trend in approval of India, on research into anti-Indian posts, and on what Indian Americans report. It also follows earlier reporting on the H-1B fee fight and Carnegie survey data, and on Vivek Ramaswamy, who was at the center of one of the online episodes.

Americans' views of India have declined, then partly leveled off#

The clearest long-running U.S. series is Gallup's question on overall opinion of foreign countries. Gallup asks whether a person's opinion is very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable. Combined favorable ratings of India come from Gallup's historical country-ratings table, retrieved Nov. 10, 2026. They show a high plateau in the early 2020s and a steady drop after 2022.

• Favorable
• Unfavorable

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

2016Favorable: 75%Unfavorable: 18%

2017Favorable: 74%Unfavorable: 21%

2018Favorable: 75%Unfavorable: 20%

2019Favorable: 72%Unfavorable: 23%

2020Favorable: 75%Unfavorable: 22%

2021Favorable: 76%Unfavorable: 23%

2022Favorable: 77%Unfavorable: 20%

2023Favorable: 70%Unfavorable: 27%

2024Favorable: 68%Unfavorable: 24%

2025Favorable: 65%Unfavorable: 24%

2026Favorable: 61%Unfavorable: 30%

201620182020202220242026

Source: Gallup, Country Ratings

Show the numbers

Year	Favorable	Unfavorable
2016	75%	18%
2017	74%	21%
2018	75%	20%
2019	72%	23%
2020	75%	22%
2021	76%	23%
2022	77%	20%
2023	70%	27%
2024	68%	24%
2025	65%	24%
2026	61%	30%

The 2026 reading is still a majority-favorable result. It is also Gallup's lowest favorable rating for India since February 2002, when 56% were favorable. It ties the February 2004 reading of 61%. Unfavorable views rose to 30% in 2026, up from 20% in 2022 and from 24% in both 2024 and 2025. In Gallup's February 2026 country list, India ranked below Mexico and Ukraine and above Egypt. Democrats were more favorable (71%) than independents (61%) or Republicans (51%). That is a 20-point party gap.

Pew's U.S. series uses a similar favorable-unfavorable wording. It is cooler than Gallup's and more uneven from year to year. The spring 2026 survey was fielded in the United States from March 23 to March 29 among 3,507 adults on Pew's American Trends Panel. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.9 points. In that survey, 45% were favorable and 50% unfavorable. Earlier Pew readings for the United States were 51% favorable in 2023, 43% in 2024 and 49% in 2025. The 2024 figure was the low point. The 2025 reading recovered some of that loss. The 2026 reading slipped again, and unfavorable views slightly outnumbered favorable ones. Pew wrote that these U.S. ratings are "some of the lowest since 2008." Younger adults were more unfavorable than older ones. Among adults ages 18-29, 56% viewed India unfavorably, compared with 43% of those 65 and older. Republicans and Republican leaners were more unfavorable (55%) than Democrats and Democratic leaners (47%).

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs fielded a survey July 10-21, 2026, with Ipsos. It covered 2,156 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 points. The Council found a slight rebound after a sharper drop. On a 0-100 feeling thermometer, Americans rated India an average of 51, up from 47 in October 2025. The Council said the October 2025 rating was the lowest in its polling since 2008. The decline was concentrated among younger adults. Those ages 18-29 rated India 47, down from 55 in 2022. Adults over 60 rated it 54, similar to their 2022 score of 55. Democrats rated India 55 and independents 52. Republicans rated it 47, up from a low of 43 in 2025. Ten percent called India an ally, down from 21% in 2021, and 41% called it a necessary partner. The Council also found that Americans who offered an opinion were more likely to favor than oppose increasing visas for high-skilled Indian workers: 36% in favor and 26% opposed. Many said they did not know enough to say. Republicans leaned against that policy, at 36% opposed and 27% in favor.

567 Politics searched for a published Morning Consult series on Americans' views of India. It did not find one that could be opened and verified. Morning Consult's public trackers that were reviewed measure views of the United States in other countries, including India. That is a different question. YouGov's U.S. country page for India, checked Nov. 10, 2026, listed 36% "popularity," 18% "disliked" and 43% "neutral." The page did not publish field dates, a sample size or a trend, so it cannot be used to measure change.

The decline is uneven abroad, and views of Modi are not a U.S. time series#

Pew's spring 2026 survey of 42,092 adults in 36 countries was fielded Feb. 9 to May 13. It found a 36-country median of 45% favorable toward India and 41% unfavorable. That is close to Pew's 2023 23-country median of 46% favorable and 34% unfavorable. The country sets are not identical and should not be treated as a single global index.

Pew wrote that in most countries, opinions of India have "remained relatively stable" since it last asked. It also wrote that 10 countries showed significant changes and that ratings fell in seven of them. Since 2025, the share with a favorable view declined by 10 points in Turkey, to 15%, and in Nigeria, to 47%. It also fell in the United States, Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico, which was down 6 points, to 30%. In Bangladesh, last surveyed in 2024, the favorable share dropped 15 points, to 42%. Views became more favorable in the United Kingdom, up 11 points, to 71%. They rose 6 points in Germany, to 63%, and 14 points in Sri Lanka since 2024, to 79%. Canada ticked up 4 points, to 51%. Australia was essentially unchanged, at 44% favorable in 2026, after falling from 53% in 2023 to 45% in 2024. A related report covers The Economist's claim about India's online image, and these same Pew global results, in more detail.

Pew has also asked about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but not as a regular U.S. trend. In 2023, a median of 37% across 12 countries said they had confidence in Modi to do the right thing in world affairs. A 40% median said they did not. About eight-in-ten Indians (79%) had a favorable view of him, including 55% very favorable. In the United States that year, 40% of adults said they had never heard of Modi. Pew's 2026 reports on India that 567 Politics opened asked the confidence question in India's neighbors, not in the United States. Seventy percent of Sri Lankans were confident in Modi, as were 42% of Bangladeshis and 4% of Pakistanis. Those figures closely tracked each country's overall view of India. Those neighbor readings cannot stand in for American opinion of the prime minister.

A YouGov survey published Aug. 10, 2026, found that 44% of Britons wanted fewer or no migrants from India, up 5 points from 39% in 2016. That is a modest shift over a decade. It concerns immigration levels, not a general impression of Indian people. In the same period, Pew's favorable rating of India in Britain rose to 71%.

Online anti-Indian posts surged after December 2024#

The recorded spike in anti-Indian posts on X began later than the first drop in U.S. country ratings. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) issued a Jan. 9, 2025, report on the last week of December 2024. It said a surge of anti-Indian posts followed two events. On Dec. 22, President-elect Donald Trump named Indian-origin technologist Sriram Krishnan as an adviser on artificial intelligence. On Dec. 26, Vivek Ramaswamy posted a critique of what he called "mediocre" American culture compared with that of "foreign-born" engineers. Krishnan had also called for easing the path from H-1B visas to green cards and citizenship, CSOH wrote. The group analyzed 128 posts that, as of Jan. 3, 2025, had 138.54 million views. Thirty-six posts had more than a million views. It said 125 of the 128 posts remained active, and that one account of 85 had been suspended. CSOH said the posts violated X's rules on hateful conduct, including slurs, tropes and dehumanization. It said the attacks targeted people seen as Indian, including Sikhs, and were not limited to Hindus.

A later CSOH report covered July 1 to Sept. 7, 2025. It identified 680 high-engagement anti-Indian posts with 281.2 million views. Immigration and expulsion themes accounted for 474 posts (69.7%) and 111.8 million views. Posts using anti-Indian slurs, which this article describes only in general terms, numbered 121 and drew 74.3 million views. Seventy-four posts tied to an Aug. 12, 2025, fatal Florida crash involving a Sikh truck driver drew 94.9 million views. Activity peaked in August, with 381 posts and 189.9 million views, during U.S.-India tariff tensions and that crash. About 65% of the posts were U.S.-centered. CSOH's samples are collections of high-engagement or keyword-matched posts. They are not a national measure of what the public thinks.

In a September 2026 report covering Jan. 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, CSOH said it identified about 542,360 anti-South Asian posts on X. It said monthly volume rose 75% from January 2025 to June 2026 and 240% from January 2024 to June 2026. It said 2025 volume (328,747 posts) was 60% higher than 2024 (205,585). Posts portraying South Asians as invaders, job thieves or a demographic threat made up 45% of the X total, it said. The group also reported 397,522 hateful mentions on 4chan, 8chan and Gab in 2025. More than 90% of those mentions came from 4chan, it said, because of collection limits on the other two sites.

The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), in a report with the University of Miami's Frost Institute, said anti-Indian content on X tripled in weekly volume in 2025. It counted more than 24,000 posts and more than 300 million views from January to December. It said policy announcements, including H-1B rules and the White House's $100,000 petition fee, lined up with surges in ethnic slurs and deportation rhetoric. It said a small set of accounts drove much of the spread: the three most active posters attracted more than 10% of likes and 20% of retweets. NCRI also said the online rise lined up with offline targeting, including harassment at Hindu temples and protests with signs against H-1B workers. 567 Politics did not recount NCRI's or CSOH's post tallies on its own.

Stop AAPI Hate used monitoring by Moonshot in online spaces it ties to targeted violence, including X, 4chan, Gab and Truth Social. It said anti-South Asian slurs in those spaces rose 109%, from 22,996 in January 2023 to 48,033 in December 2025. It said those slurs made up 66% of anti-Asian slurs in the monitored spaces over that period. It also said 71% of anti-Asian threats of violence from August 2024 to December 2025 were directed at South Asians. It listed spikes around the 2024 visibility of Kamala Harris and Usha Vance, the December 2024-January 2025 H-1B debate, Zohran Mamdani's 2025 New York City campaign, the August 2025 Florida crash and the $100,000 H-1B fee. Those figures describe selected online spaces, not the public at large. 567 Politics did not find a 2025-2026 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that was specific to anti-Indian content.

1. 2022Gallup U.S. favorability of India peaks at 77%
2. 2023Gallup falls to 70%; Pew U.S. favorability is 51%
3. 2024-02Gallup is 68%; Pew later records a 43% spring low
4. 2024-12CSOH documents a post-Krishnan and Ramaswamy surge on X
5. 2025-02Gallup is 65%; Pew spring reading rebounds to 49%
6. 2025-08CSOH records an August peak after a Florida crash and tariff fight
7. 2025-10Chicago Council thermometer hits 47, its lowest since 2008
8. 2026-02Gallup is 61% favorable and 30% unfavorable
9. 2026-03Pew U.S. reading is 45% favorable and 50% unfavorable
10. 2026-07Chicago Council thermometer rebounds to 51

Source: Gallup, Pew Research Center, CSOH, Chicago Council

The first drop in Gallup's series, from 77% in 2022 to 70% in 2023, came more than a year before the December 2024 surge on X. Pew's lowest U.S. reading, 43% in spring 2024, also came before that surge. Pew then rose to 49% in spring 2025, after the Krishnan and Ramaswamy episode, before slipping to 45% in 2026. The Chicago Council's October 2025 low sits closer to the summer 2025 wave of posts, the Florida crash, tariff tensions and the H-1B fee. The Council then recorded a rebound by July 2026. That timing cuts against a simple claim that the late-2024 burst of posts caused a lasting collapse in Americans' views of India. It does not rule out a role for later waves of content, for U.S.-India policy fights, or for both. Correlation is not causation. None of these surveys asked people whether social media changed their views.

Indian Americans report stable in-person discrimination and frequent online abuse#

The 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey was published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Feb. 19, 2026. It surveyed 1,000 Indian American adults online with YouGov from Nov. 25, 2025, to Jan. 6, 2026. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.6 points. The authors are Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Andy Robaina and Milan Vaishnav. They caution that the 2026 sample frame was revised to include more mixed-race respondents. They say comparisons with 2020 and 2024 "should be interpreted with appropriate caution."

About one in two respondents said they had been personally discriminated against since the start of 2025. Among those who reported discrimination, skin color was the most common reason (36%), followed by country of origin (21%), religion (17%), gender (16%) and caste (5%). The authors wrote that those shares have been "remarkably consistent" across the 2020, 2024 and 2026 waves. "While some forms of hate—such as online harassment—may be rising, the overall prevalence of reported in-person discrimination has remained stable," they wrote. Their discussion of a rise in online hate cites "one independent report" of a surge in anti-Indian content on X in late 2025. They did not name that report in the text.

Forty-eight percent said they had seen racist posts targeting Indians or Indian Americans "very or somewhat often" since the start of 2025. Another 41% saw such posts rarely or not very often, and 11% did not use social media. Since the start of 2025, about one in four respondents said they had been called a slur. Nine percent said they had been physically threatened, 8% had received hate mail, 6% reported property damage and 4% reported a physical assault. Thirty-one percent said they had avoided discussing politics on social media because of concern about discrimination, and 19% had avoided wearing Indian dress in public. Fourteen percent had thought frequently about leaving the United States. Thirty-seven percent had never considered it. More of those findings, and the survey's results on the $100,000 H-1B payment, are in 567 Politics' earlier report.

Stop AAPI Hate, in a January 2026 national survey of 306 South Asian adults conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, said 48% experienced a "hate act" in 2025 because of race, ethnicity or nationality. The figure was 43% in 2023 and 54% in 2024. That sample is smaller than Carnegie's and covers South Asians rather than Indian Americans only. It also uses a broader "hate act" definition that includes non-criminal incidents. Fifty-five percent said they or another Asian American or Pacific Islander in their community had been affected by changing immigration policies or anti-immigrant sentiment.

Official hate-crime counts do not show a simple explosion of anti-Indian violence#

The FBI does not publish a separate "anti-Indian" race or ancestry category. Indian, Hindu and Sikh victims may be recorded as anti-Asian, anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh or under other headings. The official figures cannot be read as a complete count of crimes against people of Indian origin. The statistics also depend on which agencies report, how they classify bias and whether victims report incidents at all.

The Arab American Institute, using FBI Crime Data Explorer figures it last updated Aug. 17, 2026, tabulated 10,881 reported hate-crime incidents in 2025, down from a CDE total of 11,949 in 2024. Anti-Asian incidents fell from 402 in 2024 to 339 in 2025, and from 441 in 2023. Anti-Hindu incidents were 28 in 2025, 26 in 2024 and 32 in 2023. Anti-Sikh incidents rose to 177 in 2025 from 146 in 2024. AAI described that as a 21% increase and the third-highest level since the category was added in 2015. The Sikh Coalition, citing analysis by Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC of the same FBI release, put the 2024 baseline at 142 incidents and the increase at 25%. The difference reflects revised versus initial 2024 totals. The Coalition said its own review found anti-Sikh incidents peaked in September 2025, the month after the Florida crash, at 26 incidents. Mannirmal Kaur, the group's senior federal policy manager, said: "While this hate crime data remains imprecise, we are deeply concerned about its implications." She added that "minority and immigrant populations have faced an even more openly hostile political and social climate since this data was collected."

Those official counts, taken together, do not show a broad 2025 surge in recorded anti-Asian or anti-Hindu hate crimes. They do show an increase in recorded anti-Sikh incidents after a high-profile crash. Researchers say that crash was used online to stigmatize a larger community. Underreporting and uneven participation remain serious limits. A year-to-year change can reflect reporting as well as crime.

Advocacy groups say rhetoric and weak enforcement have made the climate worse#

The Hindu American Foundation issued a statement after the September 2025 White House proclamation on H-1B visas. Executive Director Suhag Shukla said: "We're horrified by the sharp and reckless surge in rhetoric demonizing Hindus and the Indian American community, which has only intensified in the wake of President Trump's proclamation on the H-1B program." She called public scapegoating "heartbreaking and un-American." She also said "there is simply no place for this kind of bigotry in the America we all call home."

The Sikh Coalition, in a Sept. 10, 2026, statement, criticized a Department of Homeland Security social-media post. The post featured a Sikh man and the words "get off the roads, you don't know how to drive Mr. Singh." The group said the poster was later deleted. It said a phone line inviting the public to report "illegal aliens on American roads" was "flagrant profiling." It wrote that "this kind of profiling can only lead to more fear and more hate in our society—including fear of and hate towards Sikhs." 567 Politics searched for a 2025-2026 statement from South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) on this wave of online hate. It did not find one it could open.

CSOH has argued that X's rules already prohibit targeting people with repeated slurs, tropes and harmful stereotypes, but that enforcement has been weak. In its January 2025 sample, almost all of the posts it flagged remained up. 567 Politics could not open X's current hateful-conduct policy page, which returned an error. It also did not find a company statement specific to anti-Indian content. Researchers have cited the prominence of Indian-American officials as a trigger for abuse. Those officials include FBI Director Kash Patel, Vice President JD Vance's$ wife, Usha Vance, and Ramaswamy, who lost the 2026 Ohio governor's race. Those episodes are recorded as online attacks. They are not proof of what the public as a whole believes.

What the evidence does not show#

There is a real decline in Americans' favorable views of India the country, especially in Gallup's series since 2022. There is also a real surge in anti-Indian posts on X and in some other online spaces after December 2024. The two should be kept apart. The country-rating decline began before the late-2024 social-media spike. Pew's U.S. series is mixed rather than a straight fall, and the Chicago Council found a modest rebound in 2026. Favorable views of India rose in Britain and Germany and edged up in Canada. 567 Politics did not find a U.S. time series that asks specifically about impressions of Indian people, as distinct from India the country. YouGov's Britain figures on wanting fewer Indian migrants shifted only modestly over 10 years. Carnegie's survey finds stable rates of reported in-person discrimination among Indian Americans, and high exposure to racist posts. Official FBI counts do not show a matching jump in anti-Asian or anti-Hindu hate crimes, though recorded anti-Sikh incidents rose in 2025.

Social media can spread hostility quickly. It can also shape how a targeted community experiences daily life, as Carnegie respondents' own reports of slurs, fear and self-censorship show. That is different from a proven, society-wide collapse in how Americans, Britons, Canadians or Australians view Indian people. Where the public-opinion record is thin, this article does not fill the gap with selected posts.

Differing perspectives

Has social media driven a decline in public views of India and of Indian people?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• In-person discrimination has stayed stable

  Who holds it: Authors of the Carnegie Endowment's 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey

  The authors of the Carnegie Endowment's 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey say online abuse is widespread: nearly half of Indian American adults they surveyed had often seen racist posts targeting Indians since the start of 2025. They also argue that reported in-person discrimination has remained remarkably consistent across their 2020, 2024 and 2026 waves. About one in two respondents reported personal discrimination, a share in line with earlier surveys. They say some forms of hate, such as online harassment, may be rising even as the overall rate of in-person discrimination has stayed stable.

  In their words: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ↗

• Official posts and a hostile climate worsen hate

  Who holds it: The Sikh Coalition

  The Sikh Coalition argues that official social-media posts can fuel fear and hate toward Sikhs and other immigrant communities. It points to a Department of Homeland Security post that featured a Sikh man and told "Mr. Singh" to get off the roads, which it called flagrant profiling. The group said the poster was later deleted and that a phone line inviting the public to report "illegal aliens on American roads" was discriminatory. In its view, this kind of official messaging can only lead to more fear and more hate in society, including toward Sikhs.

  In their words: The Sikh Coalition ↗

• Online hate has worsened the climate

  Who holds it: The Center for the Study of Organized Hate

  Researchers at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate argue that anti-Indian posts on X have surged in volume and reach since late 2024, often around immigration fights, Indian-American officials and high-profile crimes. They point to hundreds of high-engagement posts that, in their count, drew hundreds of millions of views, many still online. They say the posts use slurs, tropes and expulsion themes and violate X's own rules on hateful conduct. In their view, weak enforcement lets a relatively small set of accounts stigmatize a whole community and can spill into offline harm.

  In their words: Center for the Study of Organized Hate ↗

• Rhetoric scapegoating the community is un-American

  Who holds it: The Hindu American Foundation and Executive Director Suhag Shukla

  The Hindu American Foundation and Executive Director Suhag Shukla argue that a sharp rise in rhetoric demonizing Hindus and Indian Americans is wrong and has intensified around fights over the H-1B visa program. They say a community that has contributed deeply to the country now faces public scapegoating and vilification. Shukla has called that treatment heartbreaking and un-American, and has said there is no place for this kind of bigotry in the United States. In their view, officials and the public should reject ethnic blame, whatever their stance on visa policy.

  In their words: Hindu American Foundation ↗

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