The Great Gama

Mid 20th Century 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt (22 May 1878 – 23 May 1960), commonly known by the title Rustam-e-Hind[a] and by the ring name The Great Gama,[b][7] was a pehlwani wrestler and strongman in British India and later, Pakistan.

[8][9] He was born in the Kashmiri Butt caste in Jabbowal village (Amritsar District) in the Punjab Province of British India in 1878,[2] and was awarded a version of the World Heavyweight Championship on 15 October 1910.

[3][11][12] The prominent members of Great Gama Family includes, The Great Jahara Pehlwan, Nasir Bholu, Sohail Pehalwan, Abid Pehalwan, Kalsoom Nawaz, Bilal Yasin (Ex-Federal Minister), Ibraz Butt (Youth Parliamentarian, Secretary of Information) [13] & Moazzam Zubair (Son of Jahara The Great) Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt was born on 22 May, 1878 in Jabbowal, a village in the Amritsar District of the Punjab Province of British India (now in the Kapurthala district of Punjab, India) into a Kashmiri muslim family of traditional wrestlers.

[citation needed] After the death of his father (Muhammad Aziz Baksh) when he was six, Gama was put under the care of his maternal grandfather Nun Pahalwan.

[citation needed] He was first noticed at the age of ten, in 1888, when he entered a strongman competition held in Jodhpur, which included many gruelling exercises such as squats.

[15] The contest was attended by more than four hundred wrestlers and Gama was among the last fifteen and was named the winner by the Maharaja of Jodhpur due to his young age.

[17] In 1895, at the age of 17, Gama challenged the then Rustam-e-Hind,[a] middle-aged Raheem Bakhsh Sultani Wala, another ethnic Kashmiri wrestler from Gujranwala.

Accompanied by his younger brother Imam Bakhsh, Gama sailed to England to compete with the Western wrestlers but could not gain instant entry, because of his lower height.

Zbyszko was then regarded among the premier wrestlers in the world; and he would then take on the mammoth challenge of India's feared Great Gama, an undefeated champion who had been unsuccessful in his attempts to lure Frank Gotch into a match.

[citation needed] Shortly after his return from England, Gama faced Raheem Bakhsh Sultani Wala in Allahabad.

This bout eventually ended the long struggle between the two pillars of Indian wrestling of that time in favour of Gama and he won the title of Rustam-e-Hind or the lineal Champion of India.

[27] Entering the bout, Zbyszko "showed a strong build of body and muscle" and Gama, it was reported "looked much thinner than usual".

[28] However, he managed to overpower the former easily and won the bout inside a minute, winning the Indian version of the lineal World Wrestling Championship.

When his youngest son Jalaluddin died in 1945 at the age of just thirteen, Gama was heartbroken and lost the power of speech for some days.

[35] Today, a doughnut-shaped exercise disc called Hasli weighing 100 kg, used by him for squats and pushups, is housed at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) Museum at Patiala, India.

Gama performing a baithak
Gama performing a dand
The Great Gama – Title page of the book