Gatkaਗੱਤਕਾ

Gatka is the martial art you see before you understand it: two players in bright dress circling on a festival ground, sticks cracking against shields in rhythm, spinning, leaping, never breaking the pattern of their feet. It is the traditional fighting art of the Sikhs of the Punjab, a style of stick fighting in which wooden sticks are made to simulate swords. Gatka is at once a battlefield inheritance, a spiritual discipline and, in its modern form, a standardised international sport with referees, points and championships.

What is Gatka?

Gatka, in Gurmukhi gatkā, is a weapon based martial art associated primarily with the Sikhs of the Punjab. Its main weapon gives it its name: the gatka itself, a wooden stick usually 91 to 107 centimetres long and about 13 millimetres thick, with a fitted leather hilt of 15 to 18 centimetres often decorated with multi coloured Punjabi threads. Against it stands the phari, a round dry leather shield measuring about 23 by 23 centimetres, filled with cotton or dry grass to protect the hand that holds it. Gatka exists in two forms that this page keeps distinct: rasmi, the traditional or ritual form kept by the Nihang orders and shown at festivals, and khel, the sport form, played under written rules. It has even been described as a folk dance, because in display the fighting is done to rhythm and can look like dancing with weapons.

Where does the word Gatka come from?

The Punjabi name gatka refers to the wooden stick used, and the term may have begun as a diminutive of the Sanskrit word gada, meaning a mace. The Mahan Kosh of Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha, quoted by SikhiWiki, defines the gatka as a stick of three hand spans, leather covered, used to teach the first part of club fighting, with the gatka in the right hand and the phari in the left while two men play. The same tradition treats Khutka as a synonym, a short thick club. From the weapon the name spread to the whole art: the fighting itself was first called Gatkabazi, and Gatka is its shortened, everyday form.

How did Gatka begin?

Gatka originated in the Punjab in the fifteenth century, as one branch, an ang, of the wider martial system called Shastar Vidya, the knowledge of weapons. Within that system it began as Gatkabazi, the stick and club fighting style under the gada yudh, or mace fighting, branch. SikhiWiki traces the Sikh keeping of the art to the sixth Guru: Baba Budha Ji, who had witnessed the Gurus from Guru Nanak to Guru Hargobind, is remembered in the tradition as the teacher who trained an early army of Sikhs, the Akali Sena, in the art. The Gurus built the world Gatka served. Guru Angad Dev Ji is believed to have sponsored wrestling. Guru Ram Das Ji founded the Mal Akhara in Amritsar. Guru Hargobind Ji militarised the Sikhs further, wearing the two swords of Miri Piri, temporal and spiritual power together, and Guru Gobind Singh Ji made martial training the duty of the Khalsa. The theory and techniques were handed down in an unbroken lineage of ustads, masters, and taught in akharas, training arenas, around the world. Gatka was employed in the Sikh wars and is thoroughly battle tested. It grew, the sources say, from the need to defend dharam, righteousness, often while outnumbered, and from the unification of spirit and body. That is why it is counted as the training of the Sant Sipahi, the saint soldier, and not as fighting alone.

What weapons does Gatka use?

The stick and shield are only the doorway. A Gatka student begins bare handed, moves to the stick, called soti in play, fire hardened bamboo also known as ratan, and then to the family of traditional weapons, the shastars: the lathi or quarterstaff, the marhati with balls at its ends, the gurj or mace, the katar push dagger, the khanda straight double edged sword, the kirpan and the curved talwar, the barcha spear, the teer arrow, and the chakkar throwing ring. Weapons fall into four families: blunt, bladed, flexible and projectile. Some, like the chakkar worn on the turban, are carried for defence rather than used in the bout. Training halls are akharas, and the weapons are saluted in prayer before fighting begins, a small ceremony that states the art and its purpose plainly: these are instruments of defence, held under discipline.

How is Gatka fought and taught?

Everything rests on the pentra, the basic pattern of steps. SikhiWiki describes it as a four step movement of balance and coordination, practised repeatedly, which requires the equal and simultaneous use of both hands and makes the student ambidextrous. Attack, block and counter attack are all built out of the positions of hands, feet and weapon inside that flowing pattern; there are no fixed preset moves like the forms of some other arts, and the application depends on the moment. Training starts with footwork and whole body movement, adds weapons slowly and in measure, and includes simran, meditation, warm up and prayer. In sport, a bout lasts about three minutes of alternating attack and defence. A player scores by striking the opponent, with points rising by target, one for the lower body, two for the upper torso and three for the back and head, while hits to the face or ears and blows meant to injure are fouls. Competitions run in single soti and farri soti, individually and in teams of three with one extra player, and in weapon demonstration events for individuals and teams of three to five.

What happened to Gatka under British rule?

After the Second Anglo Sikh War the new British administrators banned the art in the mid nineteenth century, and the carrying of the sword, its heart, was outlawed. The practice survived in two shelters: in rural areas, quietly, and among the Nihangs, its custodians. Because the sword was banned, the sword fighting techniques were applied to the wooden training stick, and the art that re emerged after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 had changed, moving, in the words of the scholar Kamalroop Singh Birk quoted on Wikipedia, away from a killing art toward a defence and display art. The British Indian Army itself used gatka in the 1860s as practice for hand to hand combat. One borrowed thread runs far: the Defendu close combat system devised by Captains Fairbairn and Sykes, used to train commandos in the Second World War, drew methods from Gatka among other arts. By 1920 the two forms, traditional rasmi and sport khel, existed side by side. In 1936 Kartar Singh Akali published a treatise setting out rules and methods, and that year Panjab University at Lahore adopted and standardised the rules and held inter college tournaments.

Where can you see Gatka, and where is it today?

See it where the Khalsa gathers. Gatka is performed in religious processions and at festivals, above all Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib and Vaisakhi, and it forms part of the marriage customs of Nihang Sikhs. What was traditionally performed by males only is now a competitive sport practised by women as well, at national and international level. The revival is dated and documented: an International Gatka Federation was founded in 1982 and formalised in 1987, a first World Gatka Championship was held in 1987 and a first European Championship in 2005, and Punjabi University, Patiala, which revived inter college competitions in 2001, now offers a one year diploma in Gatka. The art is officially recognised by the Sports Authority of India, and the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs of the Government of India included Gatka, with Kalaripayattu, Thang Ta and Mallakhamba, in the Khelo India Youth Games 2021 programme. Federations, from the World Gatka Federation to the Gatka Federation of India and the Punjab Gatka Association, hold two kinds of events: Virsa Sambhal, heritage events in traditional bana, and sports tournaments. In North America, players meet under the Yudh Gatka Tournament. The stick that once stood in for a forbidden sword now stands, openly, for the heritage itself.