A Death for Another People's Faith

Tegh Bahadur's martyrdom is the event for which he is above all revered, and its distinctive feature is its object. Sikh tradition relates that a delegation of Kashmiri Pandits, Hindu Brahmins facing forced conversion under the policies of the emperor Aurangzeb, came to Anandpur to appeal for help, and that the Guru resolved to stand for their right to practise a religion that was not his own.

Summoned to Delhi, he refused to convert to Islam and was executed at Chandni Chowk in 1675; the Gurdwara Sis Ganj marks the place of his beheading and Rakab Ganj the place of his cremation. Several of his companions, among them Bhai Mati Das, were killed with him. Historians debate the precise sequence of causes, imperial policy, regional politics and the Guru's own growing following all figure in the accounts, but the tradition holds fast to its meaning: that he died not for his own community's freedom but for the religious liberty of another people. It is on that ground that he is titled Hind di Chadar, "the shield of India."