gatka
themodern
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This new 'Sikh fighting system' emphasized the use of the 'Gatka' stick over ALL other training implements or weapons.

The reason for this being that after annexation of Punjab, the British had banned all Sikhs from carrying edged weapons. This ban only got completely lifted in the early twentieth century through the agitation led by the great Akali Nihang Baba Sahib Singh (the 11th 'Jathedar' of the Buddha Dal) and Baba Kharak Singh of Sialkot (first president of Shromani Gurdwara Parbandak Committee (S.G.P.C.) who was against the Gurudwara Act of 1925).

From 1857 onwards, Khalsa Hindu Sikh fighting skills came to be wrongly termed as 'Gatka'.

This British Raj-nurtured Gatka was a fighting system shorn of its lethal aspect 'Chatka'. It was no longer a military system, just as the Sikhi of the British Raj era, it was no longer the free fierce Sikhi of Akali Nihang Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

Furthermore, Gatka was practiced in the public arena, as opposed to the traditional combat art form that went underground during the British Raj. This exhibitionist Gatka came to be known in certain knowledgeable Chatka circles as 'Jahir Gatka'.