Talk:Shastar Vidya

Proposed deletion of Shastar Vidya

The article Shastar Vidya has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

fluff article

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Dosrox (talk) 23:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Reason

I am struggling to find any sources for this, other than news articles written about the same individual. There seems to be limited to no academic record of what is being presented as an ancient martial art.

There is otherwise several red flags in this article to me. For example:

1. General Quality of Sources

The sources and references appear to be almost exclusively online magazines and tabloids.

2. Categorisation

It is listed as "Full-contact sport", "semi-contact", "light-contact". It cannot be all three. It must be one of these. I have been unable to find a record of full-content contests or tournaments.

3. Famous practitioners

I cannot find record of any third party record other teachers, other than Nidar Singh Nihang (real name Surjit Singh Bains), who is listed as the one-and-only famous practitioner.

4. Age

"The battle art has existed in the subcontinent for thousands of years". If the martial art -- as it is taught today -- has existed for **thousands** of years, it would be ancient.

There are ancient, generic and non-specific, forms of combat, such as wrestling.

However, for comparison Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, commonly considered to be Japanese, oldest extant martial art, is only traced back to the 15th century. It would also predate the semi-legendary Bodhidharma and the birth of Shaolin Kung Fu.

It is said that "Since the mid-16th century, the Sikh tribes of the Punjab became the chief custodians and masters of this fighting system". However, the reference for this is a news article, where the journalist attends a class and uses direct quotes from the teacher, rather than any historical, scholarly source.

This again would make this one of the oldest martial arts of record still being practiced.

5. Banned / Not to be confused with Gatka

It claims "After the Anglo-Sikh wars the art was banned by the new British administrators of India in the mid-19th century". However, [the reference for this is not academic](https://www.thebetterindia.com/81513/ancient-martial-arts-training-india/). Users can submit their own stories to this website.

As well, the source says the art in question is Gatka. However, this article says that the martial art should not be confused with Gatka. The difference is not made clear.

6. Principle of power

It says that "Shastar Vidya is a subtle art and does not rely on fitness, flexibility or strength like western fighting systems". In this case, "Western systems" is a broad and nebulous concept. What Western martial fighting systems are being referenced here? For example, Boxing? Fencing?

It then says "Instead, it uses tactical positioning and body mechanics". This again is very vague to me. Do boxers not use careful positioning and body mechanics? Dosrox (talk) 23:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Dosrox - I disagree with deleting the article outright as this martial art did/does exist. However, a lot of the current sources used for the article are indeed unreliable and/or are presenting the views of certain individuals as fact. I can try rewriting the article. MaplesyrupSushi (talk) 18:04, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

It might be worth merging with Nidar Singh Nihang. As he does appear to be a living person who is teaching **something** that has received some news coverage.

I am just really struggling to find anything that substantial shows that this is anything other than a single guy that is running a single club in the UK, which does not appear to have historical evidence.

I've done a few searched using my university journal access, and I cannot find anything. If anyone can find some higher quality references, it would be really useful. Dosrox (talk) 20:25, 12 September 2023 (UTC)