Rampuri

The Rampuri is an Indian pocket knife with a single edged blade typically 9 to 12 inches long, made in both switchblade and step lock forms and named for Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. Royal bladesmiths employed by the Nawabs of Rampur began making the knives after the eighteenth century's widespread adoption of firearms reduced demand for traditional weapons. The Rampuri later became associated with Indian organized crime and gained wide cultural visibility through Bollywood crime thrillers of the 1960s and 1970s, before a 1990s Government of Uttar Pradesh regulation limiting blade length to 4.5 inches sharply reduced its popularity and traditional manufacture.