I don't know whether Sikhs do toxic office politics and manipulation but I do know some Sikhs do maskebaazi, chaplusi a lot. Since you don't know about my Sikh friends, let me give an example of a famous Sikh: Cricketer Harbhajan Singh. He never misses an opportunity to butter - on camera or off camera. He doesn't spare anyone. Be it umpires or ground staff or teammates or captain or board members or former cricketers or anyone. Once a TV crew was asking questions to Harbhajan after the match. After one sentence, he got started, "Mr X ne bahut achhi fielding kii. Mr Y bahut achche ballebaaz hai. Mr Z sabse mushkil batsman hai bowlers ke liye." He went on for a very long time. All irrelevant flattery. Even in the movie 'Mujhse Shadi Karogi' where he played a cameo, he exploited the opportunity to do buttering by inserting his own dialogue. Be it needlessly socializing with ground ball boys in West Indies, or joking with umpire Rudi Koertzen, or asking unnecessary doubts to ex-bowler Sivaramakrishnan, or breaking into traditional tribal jig with African bowler of SA team, or loudly supporting Ganguly during Greg Chappell controversy, Harbhajan has tremendous energy to praise everyone who comes in his sight. Who else but an Indian would have such a psyche? Such quintessentially Indian trademark. Sikhs are Indians after all. We had a sardar very similar to Harbhajan in our college.
But there is other extreme also. An example is Bishen Singh Bedi. He is brutally frank. He has come very hard on Muralitharan and Ganguly. But if Bishen Bedi is impressed, he is generous with praise also.
- PRTP GWD
