May not be part of your culture, but it's ours: EAM Jaishankar on PM Modi’s hug diplomacy

Kyiv: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here on Friday, he first shook hands and immediately gave him a warm hug.

The hug to the top leader of the war-torn country came barely six weeks after Modi had similarly hugged the leader of Ukraine’s arch enemy Russia, President Vladimir Putin.

During a media briefing after the Modi-Zelenskyy talks, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was asked about the ‘embrace’ in a question meant to seek comments on apparent linkages with Modi’s meetings with Putin earlier and Zelenskyy now.

“In our part of the world, when people meet people, they are given to embracing each other, it may not be part of your culture but I can assure you it is part of our’s. In fact, today, I think, I saw, Prime Minister (Modi) also embrace President Zelenskyy,” Jaishankar replied to a specific question by a Western reporter which mentioned in as many words about Modi’s embrace of Putin a few weeks ago.

“And I have seen him do it with a number of other leaders in a number of other places. So, I think, we have a slight ... cultural gap here in terms of what these courtesies mean,” Jaishankar added.

Much to the chagrin of the Western powers that be, Modi met Putin in July and spoke about how a solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and how peace efforts do not succeed in the midst of bombs and bullets.

On Friday, India maintained that Ukraine and Russia need to engage with each other to find a solution to the ongoing conflict between them as Modi held wide-ranging talks with Zelenskyy under the shadow of the raging war.

After Modi met with Putin, the Western media was full of news with headlines such as ‘Modi’s Embrace of Putin Irks Biden Team Pushing Support for Kyiv’ while the BBC in one of its reports said, “Photos from Moscow showed a beaming Mr Modi hugging the Russian president.” Incidentally, Zelenskyy had criticised Modi for meeting Putin -- coincided with the NATO summit in Washington -- describing it as a “huge disappointment.”

Earlier, Modi had met Zelenskyy on the margins of the G7 Summit in June in Italy.