Whats behind Manmohan Singh's legendary silence ? Does his handwriting give any clues ?

Just to give a perspective of what this post is all about, If you Google Search "Manmohan Singh Silence", you will get about 6,780,000 results as number of pages. He is aleady in his second term as a PM and a lot has been written about on why he does not express himself publically as much as a Prime Minister (PM) of the world's largest democracy should do. I make a mention to democracy here because with it comes the "Freedom to speech" as one of the fundamental rights and that is what the country does not see PM do too much of.

While there are a jokes galore on the stance that Manmohan Singh takes when it comes to expressing himself, just to set things straight, this post is not about that. Rather this post is more about an honest peek into his personality (via his signature) and search for objective answers around this.

Manmohan Singh's Signature Sample

A Note about Manmohan Singh's Handwriting/Signature Sample:

This Signature sample has been taken from a note that appeared in the Times of India newspaper dated back on 2006. I had preserved the cutting then. Incidently, he was during his first term as a Prime Minister then.

What this Signature sample tells about Manmohan Singh's silence ?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has very visible signs of Introversion (characterized by leftwide slant in signature) in his personality. People who are Introvert are visibly reserved and shy by their basic nature. Such people do not come out of their shell very easily. They may occasionally come out of the shell and then go back at the next available opportunity. Such a person show the feelings usually at the times of great anger, extreme passion, or tremendous stress. He is never an impulsive person.

In his Signature sample, there are a couple of areas that represent trait intensification portions. These portions are

- Small handwriting

- High pressure

When I say trait intensification portions, i mean that presence of these portions in the handwriting usually intensifies other aspects of the personality.

When we talk about the small letter size, it primarily relates to concentration, the smaller the handwriting more profound is the ability of a person to focus on the tasks. The influence of every trait, whether negative or positive, will be increased in strength if there is concentration in writing. If we relate this fact to the first fact about his reserved demeanor, we can easily see why Manmohan Singh behaves the way he does when it comes to sharing his thoughts and breaking his silence. And if we consider the fact that high pressure in his handwriting also has a similar intensification effect, we are actually talking about putting two strong magnifying glasses on top of his reserved nature, just doubly magnifying this aspect of his personality.  It makes it even more difficult for him to come out of his shell.

[Note: In any digital or printed signature, it is quite hard to judge the pressure applied while writing something but this is where experience matters. With my experience of looking at myraid of handwriting samples, i can safely conclude that this sample would fall in the category of high pressure.]

Couple of more insights here, his signature also reveals that Manmohan Singh tends to be a sort of perfectionist. The people who have the perfection streak in their personalities usually tend to be doubly sure before venturing into any task. This desire to be perfect can likely interfere with his ability to share and say things. Being in a public life and that too of a PM, its just not possible to be always perfect in your oratory. The desire to be perfect here likely discourages him to be open when speaking. Adding to this fact is the fact that he has a desire to be Open and honest (as shown by "a", "o" formations) in his communication can further play a role in him choosing to be silent. Afterall, there are very less honest things to share when in coalition politics.

One more fact to take into consideration is that the current text under analysis is his signature and Signatures reflect the public personality of an individual. The above description thus is the way he has chosen to be in the public life. (For his private life mannerisms, i will really need to look at his handwriting samples, which i don’t have yet)

One last thing- When i say silence in this write-up, it does not include the situations when the subject does not deliberately share something out of intention. It's just an attempt to share an aspect keeping his inner personality into mind.

A final note:

As an overall note, I would like to mention that the purpose of this post is not to debate whether silence is good or bad for PM. Like (then Home Minister) P. Chidambaram once said about this aspect of PM’s personality- “This is the style of the man”, its truly upto an individual to remain the way he wants to remain while doing his or her duty as required. One peep at the > Wikipedia

would reveal a mammoth list of achievements that the PM has an individual. He is probably the most educated PM that world has ever seen and has achieved a lot more in life besides just education. That is something which requires due respect to be given. I could end this saying that- Manmohan Singh (by nature) is more of a doer than a sayer. It can be good, it can be bad and this is something that could be debated forever.

I hope the above write-up helped you understand what goes behind-the-scenes of that legendary silence. If it did or even if it didn’t, please share your feedback.

Full source of his signature:

Image source:

http://www.topnews.in