Gatka Gatka Gatka ( Urdu: "") is the name of an Indian martial art associated with the Sikhs of the Punjab region. It is a style of stick fighting, with wooden sticks intended to simulate swords. The Punjabi name "gatka" properly refers to the wooden stick used. The word originates as a diminutive of Sanskrit "gada" "mace". The style originated in later 19th century, out of sword practice in the British Indian Army, divided in two sub-style, called "rasmi" (ritualistic) and "khel" (sport) from the 1880s. There has been a revival during the later 20th century, with an International Gatka Federation
Musti-yuddha was said to be an excellent horseman, charioteer, elephant rider, swordsman and boxer. The "Gurbilas Shemi", an 18th-century Sikh text, gives numerous references to musti-yuddha. The French General Allard commented on the boxing practiced by the early 19th-century Lahore army that "Duelling is not known in the army of Ranjit Singh. The soldiers settle their disputes with their fists; a brutal, and equally un-Christian, method of adjusting differences." The particular form of boxing he referred to was loh-musti, practiced primarily in the northwest. The British colonial introduction of western boxing in the 1890s caused a decline in native musti-yuddha, until