Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an international personality. In the last three years, he has met some of the world's most powerful leaders.
On June 3, activist Iyad el-Baghdadi made an observation about Modi that got a lot of people thinking.
Through a massive list of photos, he demonstrated that Modi is quite a fan of greeting politicians with bear hugs.
While the thread went viral on Twitter, it's hardly the first time someone has made this observation.
BuzzFeed asked body language experts to analyse Modi’s interactions with other politicians, and shed light on what it says about him:
1. He doesn't understand personal space.
Behavioural reseacher Khyati Gupta Babbar noticed that there were way too many pictures featuring people leaning away from Modi when he went for a hug.
Imagine the space around us as four concentric circles — intimate, personal, social, and public spaces. People are allowed in these circles based on your relationship with them.
"So what the PM is doing without realising — he's hugging very tight and coming too close, breaching the other person's comfort — especially during international meetings," Babbar told BuzzFeed.
Obviously.
But his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi wasn't as uncomfortable for His Highness.
2. While most of the people photographed with Modi are not visibly uncomfortable, microexpressions give them (and him) away.
In this now-famous picture of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Modi, there was a noticeable discomfort on Zuck's end. And the key is in his smile.
"Zuckerberg's smile is more of a practised fake smile than an instinctive one as his jaw is dropped lower than a usual smile," Minjal Harsora, a body language expert, told BuzzFeed.
When we look at his interaction with Merkel, we see that although the handshake is neutral, Modi's smile is tight-lipped in the picture. According to Harsora, this is a sign of him "keeping a secret he won't tell, probably due to dislike or distrust."
3. The PM was not this affectionate in the past.
In a BBC report, biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay observed that when Modi was Gujarat CM, he was a "bit cold and remote, shaking hands and maybe touching somebody on his shoulders if he knew somebody particularly well".
For example, look at these photographs of Modi and L.K. Advani from 2003 and 2014.
Watch him interacting with Rajnath Singh in 2008 vs when he was campaigning for the general elections in 2013.
4. Modi is neutral and respectful around his female contemporaries.
There are no hugs involved here.
5. He definitely shows his discomfort towards people he doesn't like.
6. Both experts agreed that Modi is mostly just a friendly guy in the public space, without much training in body language.
