Silambam Asia where silambam greatly influenced many fighting systems. The Indian community of the Malay Peninsula is known to have practiced silambam as far back as the period of Melaka's founding in the 15th century, and likely much earlier. The soldiers of Kings Puli Thevar, Dheeran Chinnamalai had Silambam army named "thadii pattalam", Veerapandiya Kattabomman and Maruthu Pandiyar (1760–1799) relied mainly on their Silambam prowess in their warfare against the British Army. Indian martial arts suffered a decline after the British colonists banned Silambam along with various other systems. They also introduced modern western military training which favoured fire-arms over traditional
Gatka As Sikh colleges opened during the 1880s, European rules of fencing were applied to create what is now called "khel" or sport gatka. The Defendu system devised by Captain William Ewart Fairbairn and Captain Eric Anthony Sykes borrowed methodologies from gatka, jujutsu, Chinese martial arts and "gutter fighting". This method was used to train soldiers in close-combat techniques at the Commando Basic Training Centre in Achnacarry, Scotland. Since India's independence from colonial rule, gatka has been managed and promoted in India by the Panjab Gatka Association and the Gatka Federation of India. The latter organization formulated and standardized rules and