I'm Indian and knew none of this lol
What can I say, I'm a history geek!
That's only part of the story though, the real interesting part is how it intersects with the genesis of pro wrestling. The Sultan's bodyguards were from the Jetti tribe who have a history of a form of ritual combat they would perform for the Sultan that resembled wrestling with what I can only describe as strapping the tin foil on by wearing leather straps around the knuckles dotted with sharp objects.
These matches(along with the aformentioned executions) were described in the memiors of James Scurry a British soldier held prisoner by the Sultan until just before his death. Scurry's memoirs were published in 1820's and became popular in the 1850s during the Victorian era which also saw the rise of freakshows, strongman exhibitions circuses, etc.
Needless to say some entrepreneurs decided cash in on the hype and started hiring people of Indian decent for their strongmen and marketing them as able to do things like crush skulls etc. Some of them had backgrounds in traditional Indian wrestling so of course exhibitions were held which led the way for professional catch wrestling and the establishment of wrestlers like the Great Gama in the 1910s.
When kayfabe wrestling as we know came into existance in the 20s and 30s into the 50s a lot of the early Indian wrestlers still had the strongman skull crushing gimmick as a way to hype themselves up as the evil foreign heel(oh no he's exiled from his home country because he killed 10 men in matches!), and simulate doing it during a match to get the crowd thinking they're witnessing a murder.
Today it's basically synonymous with "wrestler from India" which is why you've seen everyone from Tiger Jeet Singh to Jinder Mahal, and even Veer Mahaan use it at some point.
If you are wondering how I fell down this rabbit hole of knowledge it started with Sean Bean. As a kid I watched the Sharpe's Rifles series with my dad which got me into the original Bernard Cornwell novels and the prequel trilogy set in India during the 1790s and the fall of the Tipu Sultan. The events of the novels and the authors afterwords led me into reading up on the real history behind the books including the Sultan's Jetti bodyguards which finally led me to the history of wrestling, it's disciplines, and how it evolved into what we know it as today.
