sanatanhindusikh
shastarvidiya
theindependent

But one man is determined to bring it back from the brink of extinction. Nidar Singh Nihang is a 41-year-old "Gurdev" who has spent 20 years studying the secrets of Shastar Vidiya in order to pass it on to younger generations.

It is a journey that has taken him from being a food packer in a Wolverhampton factory to one of the world's top authorities on ancient Indian fighting styles. Now he is looking for young apprentices willing to devote their life to learning the secrets of an art that he believes risks dying out altogether.

"Most people who practise Indian martial arts nowadays are simply learning the toned down exhibition styles that were allowed by the British," he says. "Unless we start teaching the original fighting styles they will be extinct within 50 years. I want to find two or three sensible, intelligent and tolerant young apprentices who can pass on what I've learned to future generations."

That a British citizen is trying to resurrect Shastar Vidiya by teaching it to young British Asians is more than a little ironic given the history. Although Shastar Vidiya was widely practised across the subcontinent long before the emergence of Sikhism in the mid-16th century, it was the Sikh tribes of the Punjab that came to be the true masters of this particular fighting style.