Sana Hashmi’s article on Wednesday (“Pew wrong about Indians’ views,” Aug. 16, page 8) includes several inaccurate statements about our approach to surveying Indian public opinion. These statements hinge on a fundamental misunderstanding of Pew Research Center’s sampling design in India.
Hashmi erroneously implies that the center only surveyed respondents from four prominent Indian cities for our recent analysis of attitudes toward Taiwan. This is not correct. Respondents from Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Mumbai comprise fewer than 5 percent of our sample — about the same proportion as in the Indian population overall. Because the survey is intended to be representative of the nation as a whole, the remainder of the sample comes from places outside these four cities.
Our poll in India, conducted from March 25 to May 11, involved surveying 2,611 Indians face-to-face in 11 languages across 263 villages and towns, in urban and rural areas. Moreover, counter to Hashmi’s claim that we omitted key regions, about 3 percent of our sample reside in northeastern India, in proportion to available census figures.
The survey covered nearly 97 percent of the entire country and was based on a scientific, random sample. (A total of 3 percent of the Indian population lives in districts or states that had to be excluded from the survey due to inaccessibility or insecurity.) This poll is part of a broader 24-country study where each survey is designed and executed to represent the general population. Pew Research Center does not field urban-only surveys in any of these countries.
Hashmi suggests that the results could be skewed because respondents were confused about whether they were being asked for their opinion of the People’s Republic of China or the Republic of China. Notably, Pew Research Center unambiguously asked respondents about “China” and “Taiwan” in English and 10 other languages in which the survey was conducted (eg, Hindi and Punjabi), which was reviewed by an independent firm that employs local linguists in each language to ensure understanding by Indian participants. While it is always possible for respondents to misunderstand a survey question, efforts were made to reduce the likelihood of such an error.
Indeed, one assertion in Hashmi’s article — “many Indians ... might lack familiarity with Taiwan” — is actually backed by Pew Research Center results. In the survey, when asked about their opinion of Taiwan, the share of Indians who said they did not know or otherwise refused to answer the question was twice as high as when asked the same about China (20 percent vs 8 percent). These “don’t know” rates, paired with the notion that Indians’ unfavorable views of China and Taiwan differed significantly (67 percent unfavorable toward China vs 43 percent unfavorable toward Taiwan), suggest that while there may be some difference in familiarity, Indian respondents still view these places in distinct ways. As such, we feel confident these favorable and unfavorable measures reflect actual sentiment toward Taiwan.
As an organization that conducts polling across the globe, Pew Research Center consistently works with local organizations, vendors and subject matter experts to ensure we responsibly study a range of topics. We stand by our findings on Indians’ views of Taiwan, and in the context of interpreting a Pew Research Center survey, we welcome the public to reach out to info@pewresearch.org for clarification about our approach.
Laura Silver is Pew Research Center’s associate director of global attitudes research; Patrick Moynihan is the center’s associate director of international research methods.
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