In 2017, President Donald Trump extended a hand for what looked like it was heading toward his trademark forceful handshake pull. Narendra Modi closed the gap first, wrapping him in a hug instead. The photo went everywhere. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Indian and international media eventually gave this pattern its own nickname: “hugplomacy.” This article looks at where it actually shows up, and what it seems designed to do.
A Pattern, Not a One-Off
Modi’s embraces with visiting or hosting heads of state have become frequent enough over his time as Prime Minister to be tracked as their own recurring story. Barack Obama, Trump, Justin Trudeau, Shinzo Abe, and Emmanuel Macron have all been on the receiving end at various points, often during high-profile bilateral visits or multilateral summits where cameras were guaranteed to be present.
The hugs tend to cluster around Western and closely aligned partners. Leaders from countries with more strained or purely transactional relationships with India, most notably China’s Xi Jinping, have generally received the standard diplomatic handshake instead, a distinction that hasn’t gone unnoticed by commentators tracking the pattern.
What Supporters Say It Does
Supporters of the approach argue it does real diplomatic work by projecting warmth and personal rapport in a way a formal handshake simply can’t, softening the image of India’s foreign policy and making Modi personally more memorable on a crowded world stage where dozens of leaders blur together in most people’s minds. There’s some evidence for this: the hug photos consistently generate more media coverage and public engagement than standard handshake photos from the same summits.
What Critics Say It Doesn’t Do
Critics, including some foreign policy commentators, have argued the opposite: that hugs are a low-cost, high-visibility substitute for the harder, less photogenic work of foreign policy, trade negotiations, security agreements, and long-term strategic alignment, none of which show up in a warm photo op. One frequently cited critique frames it as diplomacy optimised for the news cycle rather than for outcomes, arguing that a warm greeting photographs well regardless of what was or wasn’t actually achieved in the closed-door meeting that followed.
Both readings can be partly true. A hug costs nothing and can coexist with substantive negotiations happening separately in the same visit; it isn’t inherently a replacement for them, even if critics are right that it sometimes gets more attention than the substance.
Reading the Selectivity
The more analytically interesting detail isn’t that Modi hugs people. It’s who he doesn’t. The choice to stick to formal handshakes with leaders from countries where India’s relationship is cooler or more guarded, and to embrace leaders from countries India is actively courting or aligned with, suggests the gesture functions as a deliberate signal rather than a spontaneous personal habit. Diplomats and journalists who track these visits closely tend to read the hug-or-handshake choice as one more data point about where a relationship currently stands, alongside the more substantive parts of any visit.
A Timeline of the Best-Known Hugs
A few specific instances are worth naming because they show how far back and how consistently the pattern runs. During Barack Obama’s visit as chief guest for India’s Republic Day in January 2015, Modi greeted him with a hug on the tarmac, an unusual gesture for a formal state arrival that got noticed immediately by protocol-watchers. In 2017, a widely shared photograph showed Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walking barefoot on a beach in Israel, a visit built around personal warmth as much as the substantive security and agriculture deals that followed. The Trump hug from that same year became one of the most replayed clips of the relationship, partly because it visibly interrupted the handshake-pull Trump was known for with other leaders. More recently, during Modi’s August 2024 visit to Kyiv, he embraced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a moment that drew particular attention given the visit came only weeks after Modi had also embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, underscoring how the gesture gets deployed even in the middle of a war where India is trying to maintain relationships with both sides.
How This Differs From Past Indian PMs
Earlier Indian prime ministers were considerably more reserved in public physical greetings with foreign leaders, sticking largely to handshakes and the traditional namaste. Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were both known for a more formal, understated diplomatic style. That contrast is part of why “hugplomacy” became a recognisable phrase specifically during Modi’s tenure rather than being read as a general feature of Indian diplomacy across administrations; it’s treated by most commentators as a personal stylistic choice of this Prime Minister rather than an institutional shift in how India conducts itself on the world stage.
Bottom Line
“Hugplomacy” isn’t random affection. It shows up consistently with certain leaders and relationships and just as consistently doesn’t show up with others, which points to it being a calculated part of Modi’s public diplomatic style rather than simply who he is as a person. Whether that’s a meaningful diplomatic tool or a well-photographed distraction from harder policy work probably depends on which specific relationship, and which specific hug, you’re looking at.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available news coverage and commentary listed below. It is written for general informational purposes and does not represent an official statement from the Government of India or the Prime Minister’s Office.
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