ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The presidential election in the U.S. earlier this month has divided opinions among the world's democracies. In India, the world's most populous democracy, support for Donald Trump seems strong. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports from the southern Indian city of Chennai.
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DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Eighty-four-year-old Bala Raja exits a Hindu temple after prayers. He sports a New York City cap. It's a gift from his son, who went to the States.
BALA RAJA: So he came back. That day he brought a cap for me.
HADID: It's a nice hat.
UNIDENTIFIED WORSHIPPERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
HADID: I had come to this temple in this leafy suburb of Chennai because it's where the mother of Vice President Kamala Harris was raised. I wanted to see if people here had been supporting her bid for the presidency. But there was no sense of loyalty or affection here for Harris among the men I interviewed. In fact, Raja tells me he's all in for Trump.
RAJA: He's the right man.
HADID: The right man.
RAJA: He's the right man to control the Chinese and Russians.
HADID: Raja believes Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn't have dared invade Ukraine under a Trump administration. Another worshipper nods. He goes by the name R. Srikanth. He says now that Trump's coming back...
R SRIKANTH: He will talk to Putin.
HADID: ...Trump will talk to Putin - stop the war. Views like this echo Trump's messaging during the elections and something he's often repeated, like on Fox News earlier this year.
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DONALD TRUMP: I was the only president for 78 years no wars started.
HADID: In fact, Trump says he ended wars.
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TRUMP: I withdrew from Syria. I withdrew from Iraq.
HADID: The truth is somewhat more complicated. Nevertheless, that's the message that filtered to Goutam Nimmagadda's WhatsApp groups. He's a 29-year-old engineer. We meet him by the Chennai seashore. Nimmagadda tells me his friends see Trump as a peacemaker.
GOUTAM NIMMAGADDA: Trump is more about stopping wars. He wants to bring in peace.
HADID: Trump, who openly voiced admiration for Putin, hasn't elaborated on how he'll end wars, particularly Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Trump's detractors worry he'll push Ukraine to accept Russian annexation of some of its territory and claim this outcome as part of a peace deal. Sumitra Badrinathan is an American University political scientist. She says this view of Trump as a peacemaker is widely held.
SUMITRA BADRINATHAN: There's a lot of people across the world who do believe this narrative that Trump is going to end the wars. It's not unique to India.
HADID: And in India, men, in particular, may be more amenable to Trump's claims of being a peacemaker because Indian men are largely amenable to Trump. A June poll by the Pew Research Center found 51% of Indian men had confidence in Trump. Milan Vaishnav directs the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He thinks that affection for Trump might mirror their views of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.
MILAN VAISHNAV: For some people, and maybe this is more common among men, they see similarities between Modi and Trump.
HADID: Analysts say the two leaders are populists, nationalists who have come to power partly by whipping up fears about minorities and promising only they can fix it.
MILAN VAISHNAV: It's this idea that, you know, we live in this chaotic world, and we need these sort of larger-than-life strongmen figures to essentially stabilize the system.
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HADID: Back at the Hindu Temple in Chennai, R. Srikanth tells me people are tired of conflict.
SRIKANTH: Now the world wants some sort of peace, so everybody can grow.
HADID: But Srikanth can't say how Trump will make peace, except that he's somebody who's respected and feared. And maybe that's enough.
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Chennai.
(SOUNDBITE OF PEALS' "TIPTOES IN THE PARLOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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