At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, India's representative Deepak Mittal stood, folded his hands into a namaste towards the Pakistani side, and within a fraction of a second brought his hands back down and crossed in front of him. That small sequence — the greeting and the quick withdrawal — became one of the most talked-about gestures in India, and the reactions were split. Some read it as cold. Others read it as proud. So let me read it the way I read any gesture: by what the body is actually doing, not by what we want it to mean.

What a handshake was meant to say

The handshake began as a gesture of reassurance. An extended right hand was a way of saying, I am hiding no weapon. The up-and-down shake supposedly dislodged anything concealed in a sleeve. Over centuries it became shorthand for friendliness, openness, a clean meeting between two people. That history matters here, because choosing not to shake is choosing not to send that particular signal.

Reading Mittal's namaste

Watch the clip closely and you see preparation, not improvisation. He is already set to greet with a namaste before the moment arrives — his hands come up smoothly, the gesture is complete, and then he places them down with a crossed posture. The readiness tells you this was decided in advance, not a flustered reaction in the room. And this isn't new for him. He used the same namaste when he met the Pakistani side last year, and it was discussed just as much then. A repeated, deliberate choice is a pattern, and patterns are what body language actually reveals.

The quick withdrawal of the hands and the crossing in front of the body is a low-comfort signal — for entirely understandable reasons given who is across the table. It is the body marking a limit. But here is the important distinction: a limit is not the same as an insult.

A boundary, not an offence

Look at the other people in the room and you'll notice their handshakes aren't especially firm or warm either. There's no performance of friendliness, and that's the point. When you have come for a serious discussion, you don't need to manufacture closeness you don't feel. What's on the inside can stay honestly on the outside. Mittal didn't fake a warm grip; he offered a respectful, formal acknowledgement instead.

In body language terms the namaste is a graceful gesture. It is not aggression, it is not revenge, it is not a slap delivered with folded hands. When one person offers a handshake and the other responds with a namaste, that is a recognised Indian greeting standing in for a Western one. It communicates: I acknowledge you, I am present and composed, and I am keeping the contact formal.

What you can take from this

  • A gesture decided beforehand reads differently from one done in a panic — readiness shows in how smoothly it lands.
  • Crossed or quickly withdrawn hands signal discomfort or distance, not necessarily hostility.
  • Declining a warm handshake is sometimes more honest than offering a hollow one.

So no, I wouldn't call this a snub. It was a controlled, dignified way of holding a boundary in a tense setting — saying enough to be civil and no more than was true. Sometimes the most graceful thing the body can do is greet you without pretending to be your friend.