By Rupinder S. Brar MD FACC

Guru Teg Bahadur was preaching in faraway Assam when he received a short disquieting message from the Sangat of Burya, a small town near Sirhind, in Punjab. Some fanatic Muslims had taken it upon themselves to destroy a Sikh house of worship and erect a Mosque instead. They appointed a local dervish name Sayyed Muzaffar as its caretaker. The act so enraged the Sikhs living in the area that they not only destroyed the illegal Mosque but also killed the dervish in the ensuing violence.  The matter reached the emperor of Hindustan and fearing harsh retribution the Sangat reached out to their Guru. Guru Teg Bahadur heard the message calmly but understood the gravity of the situation. At the root of the seemingly insignificant local dispute lay a country wide imperial farman (order) issued on April the 9th, 1669 issued by emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir which informed all the provincial governors that Hindu temples and other non-Muslim houses of worship were to be destroyed and only Mosques could be built in their place.  It was an unprecedented order that threatened the very basis of the communal harmony that the various Pirs, Sufis and the Sikh Gurus had created over the years. Fortunately, the order had been ignored at most places until then but now things seemed to be getting out of hand.

Many people were convinced that such policies were driven by Aurangzeb’s puritanical zeal to create Daar ul Islam—an Islamic society but there were others who were not so sure. Among them was Guru Teg Bahadur’s friend and benefactor, Kunwar Ram Singh Kachwaha, the Rajput prince of Amber. Like his father and forefathers before him, Ram Singh was an imperial Mansabdar and a close Mughal ally. He was present at the imperial court in Agra on May the 12th, 1666 when a certain unpleasant incident took place from which point onwards one could see in hindsight, began the slow but progressive hardening of royal attitude towards his Hindu subjects.

On that day, Ram Singh’s father Raja Jai Singh brought with him to the court the Maratha chief Shivaji to meet with the emperor. Shivaji was known to be a fierce warrior who had fought the Mughals to a standstill. It was only after Jai Singh took command of the Mughal armies in the Deccan and forced him out of his mountain hideouts that Shivaji decided to negotiate. Jai Singh treated him with respect and prevailed upon him to make peace with the Mughals. He even offered to intercede on his behalf. The proud Maratha was reluctant at first but left with little choice eventually agreed to meet the emperor.

The meeting was a disaster.

Firstly, the free-spirited warrior felt stifled by the formal court etiquette. Secondly, he felt humiliated at having to stand quietly in the back among minor officials to wait his turn. He decided enough was enough and ignoring protocol began to complain loudly. Ram Singh tried to calm him down but Shivaji was inconsolable.

“I am the chief of the Marathas and will not be treated thusly, he loudly wailed. “Even if you cut off my head, I will not stay here a moment longer.”

Having thus created a scene, he angrily stomped out of the court. Offended at such insolence, the emperor had him placed under guard and put Ram Singh in charge of his captivity. Unfortunately for the prince, Shivaji easily escaped from his custody and was soon back in the Deccan, now a national hero where he resumed his rebellion with renewed vigor. The entire incident left Aurangzeb humiliated and bitter. He also felt politically outsmarted. A suspicious man anyway he decided to lay the entire blame on the father and son duo, Jai Singh and Ram Singh. Overlooking his own mishandling of the situation he convinced himself that the two had perhaps deliberately let Shivaji escape because they were all fellow Hindus. Following the episode Aurangzeb never completely trusted the Hindus again. Within months his attitude towards the Rajputs too changed as he gradually began to seek favor with the orthodox Sunni elements instead. Ram Singh’s rank was reduced, and he was sent away to fight on the Eastern frontier as a punishment. Meanwhile, the imperial policies became decidedly anti Hindu. The Muslim orthodoxy were delighted further when Aurangzeb fell under the influence of Sheikh Masum, the grandson of the ultra-conservative Naqshabandi scholar Sheikh Ahmed of Sirhind.

Soon thereafter, the emperor banned the celebration of Navroj, the Shia new year festival and the popular Hindu festival of Holi.  Next, maybe because it was reported that Shivaji had travelled incognito disguised as a Hindu pilgrim, the emperor vented his ire upon the respected Hindu centers of pilgrimage.  In October of 1666 he issued a royal order to destroy the intricate marble railing around the landmark Hindu temple of Keshwa in Mathura that had been designed and paid for by his liberal brother Dara Shikoh.  The following year he destroyed another famous Hindu temple, that of Kalkaji near Delhi.

The worst was yet to come.

In 1667 Aurangzeb invited five hundred Muslim religious scholars to write Fatwa e Alamgiri, a legal code based on Islamic Sharia that was to become the law of the land. It would be a first time in history that a non-Muslim majority country would be governed by Islamic Sharia.  In 1669 came the infamous order to destroy the Hindu temples and build Mosques instead.  The order was not only immoral it was also colossal political blunder. From the days of Akbar, the Great, internal stability of the Mughal empire had rested upon the twin pillars of religious tolerance socially and a Mughal Rajput alliance politically. Now Aurangzeb was messing with both and playing with fire.

Within months of the temple desecration at Mathura, Jats of that area rebelled and kicked out the local Mughal faujdar.  When a large Mughal force was sent to capture them, they united under a charismatic Zamindar named Gocula and destroyed that force too. Though eventually Gocula and his supporters were captured and executed, the uprising encouraged others to follow suit. At other times the Muslim fanatics themselves began the trouble as they did in Punjab. It seemed the entire burden of holding together the communal consensus now fell upon the shoulders of one unassuming, mild mannered man—poet, philosopher, scholar and the ninth inheritor of Nanak—Guru Teg Bahadur.

He had never actively sought that role. As a child he had been tutored by two community icons, Baba Buddha and Bhai Gurdas.  Between them the two men had lived through the entire Guru period from Guru Nanak onwards and embodied the Nanakian values of self-sacrifice, courage, patience, and high mindedness. Under their influence, the young Tyag Mal, as he was then known, grew up to be a quiet and introspective youth, almost too much so, perhaps which is why his father passed him over and picked his brother’s son as the seventh Guru instead.  While other relatives protested, Guru Teg Bahadur gladly accepted the verdict and went away from Kiratpur, to spend his days meditating in the relative obscurity of Bakala. However, the seventh and the eighth Gurus tragically died in quick succession leaving behind a vacuum and a shaken community, Teg Bahadur, now a mature scholar and a seasoned man, came out of seclusion just as easily and without much fanfare assumed his anointed calling as the ninth Guru. His new role would require him to demonstrate all the patience, discipline, and resoluteness he had learnt from his two tutors and he would not disappoint.

In one of his first acts as a Guru he travelled to Ramdaspur to pray at the Harmandir built by his grandfather but found the doors of the shrine shut in his face by a rival pretender.  Undaunted, he sat on the doorsteps to say his prayers and then left without a fuss. When the supporters of another rival, Dhirmal shot and wounded him in the shoulder, the Guru refused to retaliate. When his own supporters ransacked Dhirmal’s dera and brought to him the original copy of the Adi Granth that Dhirmal had taken away without permission from his grandfather’s house at Kiratpur, the Guru had the Adi Granth restored back to Dhirmal. Let his wayward nephew keep the original copy—the Sacred Word was universal anyway.

Forgiving and non-confrontational he maybe but the new Guru was no pushover—something people close to him discovered around the Diwali of 1665 when he was preaching to mixed caste audiences at the village of Dhamtan near Jind. His sermons offended the upper castes of the area who threatened him with grave consequences, but the Guru ignored them. He was reported to the emperor at Agra as a troublemaker and a threat to social order.  Aurangzeb promptly had him arrested and brought before him. The Guru still refused to backdown, but neither would he acknowledge any wrongdoing. He was almost executed on the spot but for the timely intervention by prince Ram Singh Kachwaha, who happened to be in the imperial attendance, and impressed by the Guru’s fearlessness, became an instant devotee. Ram Singh interceded with the emperor and begged for a reprieve.  The emperor reluctantly released the Guru into the custody of the Rajput prince, but the image of a stubborn ‘troublemaker’ would settle firmly in his mind.

Prince Ram Singh was headed for the eastern frontier as the commander of an imperial army and at his insistence Guru Teg Bahadur decided to join him. It was familiar territory for him anyway for no other Guru with the exception of Guru Nanak had travelled so extensively in Hindustan as he. Even before his investiture Guru Teg Bahadur had been up and down the Gangetic valley several times and knew the land and its people very well. He decided to use the opportunity to renew his links once again. Over the next four years he travelled through Agra and Awadh, Bihar and Bengal, to reach the far province of Assam.  He preached to throngs of admirers along the way and wherever he went, he taught the Nanakian values of spiritual strength and personal humility, of introspection and meditation.

Now four years later, tensions were rising across the land and had reached Punjab. He quickly made up his mind, he was needed there and decided to head back. Within days the Guru household was on the road. His wife, Mata Gujri and his young son, Gobind Rai went separately in the care of a small group of retainers while the Guru himself took a slightly different route.

Over the next few months, he travelled once again through familiar towns and cities, Sasaram and Bodh Gaya, Benares/Kashi and Mathura and once again people flocked to see him and to hear him speak, to touch his feet and feed him and his companions. It was like the old times and yet the Guru could see firsthand, the violence that was being done to his people and his land. In Kashi he passed by the fresh heap of ruins that was once the ancient Vishwanath temple, its graceful pillars barely visible under a newly built Muslim shrine, the Gyanvapi mosque erected in its place on the imperial orders—a grotesque testament to the humiliation of one faith and the perversion of another.

Further west stood another new mosque in Mathura dominating the very place where the much-revered Keshava Dev temple once was. It seemed not only Hinduism but even the gentle Islam, of Sheikh Farid and Mian Mir was under assault for here it was told that to humiliate the Hindus further, the sacred idols from the temple had been carried away to Agra and buried beneath the steps of another mosque so that the feet of the Muslim faithful may walk over them every day.

The Guru and his party threaded their way slowly through the Indo-Gangetic heartland and reached Delhi by late June. By then the hot summer sun was upon them and they took a few weeks break from the journey there. The capital was rife with rumors and people as anxious as elsewhere. The Guru listened to one and all as he continued to propagate his message of kindness and compassion. Several holy men came to see him and pay respect. Among them were a group of men who arrived from the nearby town of Narnaul. They introduced themselves as Satnamis, a sect made up of low caste Hindus whose beliefs were very similar to the Nanakpanthis. Guru Teg Bahadur received them warmly and blessed them.  Never threaten anyone nor be afraid of anyone or anything, he told their leader. Soon thereafter, he left for Punjab. The Satnamis too headed back to Narnaul. Aurangzeb Alamgir was in Delhi at the time but took no notice of the meeting.

Apparently, he had much more important things on his mind.

II.A Beleaguered Badshah

Even as Guru Teg Bahadur was passing through, a sense of siege was settling in the capital. Dissent and rebellion seemed to be everywhere. From the Subah of Kandahar came reports of a Pashtun uprising under a Yusufzai leader named Bhaku who drove out the Mughal officials.  The emperor ordered fresh forces rushed from Lahore and Kabul. After some intense fighting the rebels were crushed but pockets of resistance remained. Then worse news came from the South. For a while, the spies had warned that the Marathas were restive once again. In February of 1670 they began a fresh offensive. In a night raid a handful of daring Marathas scaled the steep walls of Singhagad fort and massacred its surprised Mughal garrison.  The fall of Singhagad was a singular disaster for it was a strategic outpost in the heart of enemy territory and its fall left Shivaji unchecked. Soon he began his punishing raids into Mughal territories including an audacious one on the rich port of Surat. The demoralized Mughals could only look helplessly on.

Stung by such reverses, Aurangzeb was forced to pour men and material into the troubled provinces. New Mansabdars were appointed, and new estates created and distributed among them. Such measures began to put an additional strain on the already seething heartlands. Now, fresh trouble began to brew, this time barely fifty kos from the capital, at a place called Narnaul where a new egalitarian movement had taken hold some decades ago among the lower caste Hindus. Exactly when and how that movement originated is disputed by historians but what is not disputed is its remarkable roots in the Nanakian philosophy.

Even the name of the community—Satnami—came from Guru Nanak’s name for the Divine in his credal statement, the Mool Mantar. Like the Sikh Panth in Punjab the Satnamis eschewed caste, class or gender differences and believed in a formless God, Sat Naam that manifested itself in the form of the Shabad. They rejected empty rituals and asceticism, believed in hard work and simple living as householders. Like the Sikhs, they called their community—the Panth. Their commune was made up almost entirely of the low caste Chamars and like the early Sikh community at Kartarpur, men and women worked together all day and read their sacred Pothis in the evening. Over time Satnami community began to insist on being treated at par with the upper caste Hindus, an assertiveness that was reinforced by their recent meeting with the Sikh Guru. Unfortunately, such assertiveness was considered an affront to the centuries old caste system and Mughal absolutism therefore a clash soon became inevitable. Trouble started in 1672 over a very ordinary event. A Mughal trooper finding a Satnami peasant too insolent for his liking, split his head with a blow from a stick. It was nothing unusual, such things happened all the time. Unfortunately, that day it turned out poorly for the trooper for in no time dozens of peasants surrounded him and almost beat him to death. Such audacity from low caste peasants was unheard of and could not go unpunished. The local shiqqdār (petty revenue collector) sent a contingent of troops to drag the miscreants to justice.

The Satnamis however had anticipated such a move and were ready.

Aware that the flower of the Mughal army was far away in the Deccan they not only drove the troops away, but went on the offensive and after overrunning the neighboring town of Bairat marched on to Shahjahanabad (Delhi) itself.  It was an audacious move. Believing that the Mughals were on the run, other peasants and artisans flocked to the Satnami cause and their ranks swelled into thousands. Too late, the Mughals realized that they had a full-fledged rebellion on their hands and the lightly defended city went into panic. People buried their valuables and the price of food grain shot up. Sensing the imperial weakness, even upper caste Rajputs and Muslim Zamindars around Delhi refused to pay revenue. Rumors flew. It was said that the Satnamis were backed by magic spells and were immune to Mughal arrows or bullets.

The dread reached such a level that emperor Aurangzeb himself had to step in. He announced that he would counter Satnami magic by inscribing the holy Koranic verses on green banners in his own hand that would dispel all evil spells. The banners were held high by foot soldiers and an army was hastily put together.  Artillery pieces were stripped off from the city walls and desperately pressed into service. Ten thousand imperial troops were somehow gathered under a seasoned commander. The two sides clashed a few miles from the capital on Friday, the 15th of March 1672. Outgunned and outclassed, the Satnamis were wiped out but not before winning a grudging admiration of their adversaries.

As the news of this unusual uprising spread, rebels elsewhere took heart. From the Subah of Kabul came fresh news that the Pashtuns were on warpath once again, this time fueled by the fiery rhetoric of a warrior poet named Khushal Khan Khattak. Encouraged by Khattak the Afridi Pashtuns massacred a force of forty thousand men and the provincial governor, Muhammed Amin Khan barely escaped with his life.  The alarmed emperor decided to take the field himself. In early 1674 he moved to a desolate military outpost of Hasan Abdal located on the North West frontier. By using a combination of deceit, coercion, subterfuge, and bribery, he somehow pacified the Afghan tribesmen but his absence from the capital took a toll elsewhere. Far away in the Deccan Shivaji decided to take advantage of the imperial distractions to take on the emperor on equal terms.  He announced the establishment of a new Hindu empire in the Deccan with himself crowned as its independent ruler. The coronation was a grand affair that cleverly appealed to the Hindu sentiments by harking back to the pre-Islamic culture and extinct Hindu empires.  The entire proceedings were carried out in Sanskrit and fifty thousand Brahmins were invited from all over Hindustan to preside over the ceremony. They were led by the venerable Gaga Bhatta of Benares, who declared Shivaji’s bloodline the most noble in the land, surpassing even the Sisodhiyas of Mewar. Lavish gifts were showered over the Brahmins and elaborate feasts were provided to them and their families for four long months. On June the 6th, 1674 Shivaji woke up early after days of fasting and prayers for purification and mounted the auspicious throne of a Hindu Sawrajaya.  The waters from all the sacred rivers of Hindustan, Indus, Ganga, Yamuna, Narbada, Tapti, Godavari, Krishna and Cauveri were poured over his head by his eight chosen ministers, his Ashtpardhan. Shivaji was given a new title—Kshatriya Kulavantas Chhtrapati Raje Shivaji, and a new Hindu golden age—the ‘Shiv Rajyabhisheka Shaka,’ was officially declared as literally tons of gold, silver and precious metals were distributed among the guests and the Hindu temples all over the land.  The symbolism of this grand spectacle was not lost on anyone, least of all on the shrewd emperor. Until that point, all the noble Hindu ruling houses were Rajputs from Rajputana and all of them had accepted Mughal suzerainty, Mughal service. Now by declaring himself as a blue-blooded Rajput and an independent Hindu ruler at that, Shivaji had staked a claim to the leadership of the entire Hindu population of the land. Moreover, by resurrecting the ancient Hindu imperial traditions he artfully bypassed the Mughal emperor’s authority to confer kingship. Instead, he claimed legitimacy from the Hindu Shastras as the inheritor of India’s ancient empires. It was high propaganda but a political masterstroke that challenged the very hegemony of the Mughal rule in Hindustan. To add insult to injury, Shivaji who was now nearly bankrupt thanks to his elaborate ceremonies, sent his generals to once again raid and plunder deep into the Mughal territories to pay for the extravaganza.The emperor was left seething but there was little he could do immediately about it. Around the same time, he received another intelligence report from the nearby Subahs of Lahore that caught his attention. Spies reported that the Sikh Guru was moving around in the countryside of Malwa and Doaba in Punjab with thousands of soldiers and horsemen in tow. That ‘whosoever was refractory towards the officials took refuge with him.’ The report warned the emperor that if no notice was taken immediately an insurrection was likely that would be extremely difficult to deal with (later).”

Aurangzeb was a suspicious individual anyway and surrounded as he was by insurgents and threatened by a new Hindu political revival in the land, he had every reason to assume the worst. The Satnami uprising was still fresh in his mind, and neither had he forgotten the support, limited though it was, that Guru Har Rai had extended to his brother and rival Dara Shikoh in 1658. Now with a new rival rising in the Deccan he could not risk another infidel uprising in Punjab. Thus, assuming the worst and sure that he was acting in the best interest of the empire, Aurangzeb Alamgir sent a secret message to the Subedar of Lahore. Guru Teg Bahadur was to be arrested immediately and executed lest he became a bigger threat to the empire.

III. The Protector of Hindustan

Guru Teg Bahadur had arrived in Punjab just in time for the festive season around the Dussehra of 1670. He caught up with his family at Lakhnaur near Ambala from where they all proceeded to Anandpur, then known as Chakk Nanaki. By 1672 however he was back again touring the areas of south east Punjab known as Malwa and Bangar.  He met as many people as he could and listened to their concerns. The entire region was in an appalling state. Mismanagement and poor governance had driven the peasantry to the edge and many of them were in a sullen and rebellious mood.

Besides the obvious social and inter faith tensions generated by the imperial orders, another big problem haunting the peasantry was economic exploitation. Because the near constant imperial wars needed men and resources a huge burden fell upon the peasantry. Large Jagirs or estates were squeezed as smaller ones were carved out of them to pay for the expanding list of Mansabdars who lived off these estates. The matters were made worse by constantly rotating the Mansabdars among the estates. Sometimes a single estate changed hand more than once in a single year and the peasants were forced to pay the taxes twice.  Because most able-bodied men were drawn away to serve in the Mughal armies, lawless elements could not be checked. Unfortunately, the imperial officers blamed the local peasantry for any crimes committed in their areas and punished their leaders.

Such pressures created a dangerous situation especially since the entire countryside in the 17th century was one large armed camp in which peasants everywhere carried arms.  Many villages had fortified compounds and when the peasants were in a bad mood even a simple act of tax collection by the authorities had to be backed by force.  Just like the Jats in Mathura and the Satnamis of Narnaul, the peasants in Punjab had grown bold and were but one incident away from rebellion. Banditry was endemic.  In such trying times, it was the Guru who tried to calm tempers. In Assam, he had mediated a peace between the warring Ahoms, and the Mughal forces led by Ram Singh.  Now back in Punjab, he did the same, acting both as their spiritual guide as well as their conscience keeper. Meditation and introspection alone, he preached, was the way to survive in the Kaliyug.

Jagat bhikhari phiraat hai,

sabh ko daata Ram; he wrote;

(the world is full of beggars,

and yet there is only one true Giver).

 

At another place he said:

‘One who is neither given to anger nor despair,

but considers both friends and foes alike,

know that person as truly liberated.

One who is untouched by pride nor greed,

know only such a person an image of the Divine.

Unfortunately, the Guru’s job was a difficult one. As the pressure on the land revenue continued unabated, the destitute peasants often abandoned their lands and turned to the only institution available to them for aid—the house of Guru Nanak. Yet because the abandonment of the land was technically considered illegal, the Mughals looked upon many such followers of the Guru as criminals. The Guru however felt duty bound to help one and all, regardless of caste or class, region, or religion. He went about providing for the needy, digging wells and ponds in parched lands, providing cattle where there was need and feeding those who had to be fed.  While social and political tensions rose and fell, the Guru preached nothing but patience, compassion and humility. However, it was these large crowds of disenchanted peasantry following the Guru that probably frightened the Mughal spies who dutifully reported their fears to the emperor with tragic consequences.

It was a false alarm.

The Guru had no political ambitions. His strength was chiefly spiritual, his weapons were his conscience, and his goals were Dharmic—wellbeing of all. There was never any thought of a rebellion in the Guru’s mind.

It was not his style.

The key to living within the Hukam the Guru famously preached, was to never fear anyone nor to threaten anyone.  Even as he watched the likeminded Satnamis rebel in Narnaul next door, he never encouraged anyone to take up arms.

According to oral Sikh tradition, in 1675 a group of Kashmiri pandits despondent over forced conversions in their area approached the Guru to mediate with the emperor on their behalf.  It was not an unusual request; the Sikh Gurus had mediated on the behalf of the people before from time to time. For example, in 1598 Guru Arjan had met with emperor Akbar on the behalf of the peasantry suffering from drought and had their taxes remitted.  Having seen the pain and suffering in the land, Guru Teg Bahadur probably meant to meet with the emperor anyway to appeal to his conscience and stop the brutalizing of his people. Not wanting to wait any longer, he set out on July the 10th, 1675, on a peaceful mission to the capital accompanied by three close followers—the brothers Bhai Mati Das and Sati Das, and Bhai Dayala.  The party had only gone a short distance when they were stopped by Mirza Nur Mohammed Khan near Ropar on July the 12th. Acting upon the royal instructions, the official arrested the Guru and his companions and sent them to the lockup in Sirhind.

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months, but the Guru remained in prison without any clear reason. Finally, it became obvious that he was unlikely to make it out of the prison alive. Guru Teg Bahadur accepted his fate calmly and took solace in two of his favorite activities—meditation and poetry. His writings reflected the urgency of the moment, yet he would not let the community despair.

“Strength departs, fetters remain; all remedies are gone.

You alone (God) remain a hope,

as once you helped a trapped elephant,” 

 he wrote. But then he followed it by:

 “Strength is restored,

all fetters break,

in your (God’s) hands lie all remedies.” 

 Four months later, the Guru was transported to Shahjahanabad (Delhi) under imperial orders. Reportedly attempts were made to get the Guru to confess and accept Islam, the usual option offered to the political prisoners, but the Guru rejected such pressures even as his companions were tortured to death in front of his eyes. Loyal followers in the capital were able to maintain some communication with the Guru but to them too he advised only patience and submission to Divine will. Some of his most beautiful and poignant verses were composed during those final difficult months. The world was false, he observed, its petty attractions an entanglement, yet the only unchanging reality was the impermanence of life.

“Chinta tan ki kijiye ja anhoni hoye,

ehu maraag sansaar ko Nanak Thir nahin koye”

(Fear only that which is unexpected,

not the (changing) ways of the world—nothing stays forever).

His words were read, repeated, and shared by anguished followers hoping for a miracle. Later generations would come to believe that the Guru perhaps used supernatural powers to leave the royal prison at will to visit the faithful yet the Guru himself eschewed all such talk when he lived. According to one account, when asked to perform a miracle, he agreed to do so but only on the day of his execution. He said he would tie a talisman around his neck that would allow him to defy death.

On November the 24th, 1675 he was brought out of prison at Chandni Chowk for the last time and seated under a large banyan tree. In front of a large crowd of spectators and wailing followers, the executioner’s sword performed its ghastly deed and the piece of paper tied around the Guru’s neck was opened and read aloud.

‘I gave my head but not my creed,’ it simply said.

Guru Hargobind had named his youngest son, Tyag Mal (hero of sacrifice) when he was born and renamed him Teg Bahadur (mighty hero) on account of his courage. The son did not disappoint. He lived and died an embodiment of both his names—a fearless hero while he lived and a sacrificing one until the very end. Baba Buddha and Bhai Gurdas would have been proud.

His body was ordered to be quartered and exposed to public view but according to oral accounts a fierce dust storm arose momentarily blinding all those present. In the ensuing confusion courageous followers, Bhai Jaita snatched the severed head and transported it to Anandpur where it was consecrated to the flames by his nine-year-old son and successor. Another follower, Lakhi Shah Banjara snatched the body of the Guru and hiding it in his wagon full of limestone took it home and cremated it by setting his house on fire.

Such heroism revived the spirit of the small Sikh community that became even more emboldened. A Mughal historian was to record that when the emperor returned to his capital ‘Sikh miscreants’ threw two bricks at him. One of these struck his movable throne.’

As the news of the martyrdom spread, the Sikh Guru and his principles became an object of admiration and pride throughout the land. In faraway Deccan lived Samarth Guru Ramdas, the spiritual mentor to Shivaji. He recorded in his diary a chance encounter he once had with Guru Hargobind. In an answer to the question as to why the Guru dressed like a prince and carried twin swords, he was told the swords were to protect the weak.

“Batan faquiri Zahir Amiri,’

(Externally I look like a prince, but internally I am a hermit), the Guru had replied.

“I liked his reply very much,” wrote Samarth Ramdas, admiringly of the Guru in his diary. Now his son had died a martyr for a similar cause and earned the admiration of millions. Guru Teg Bahadur was promptly given a new title by the people living in the Gangetic valley, Hind-di-Chaddar—the protector of Hindustan. In Punjab, his contemporary Bulleh Shah labeled him a Ghazi—martyr to the cause.

Yet it was his son, Guru Gobind Singh who said it the best:

 ‘To protect their right to wear tilaks and sacred threads,

did he—in the dark age—perform the supreme sacrifice.

 

To help the saintly he went to extremes.

His head he gave, yet uttered no sigh.

 

For the sake of Dharma, he did this deed,

His head he gave, yet not his creed.

None could match such a deed.’ 

Epilogue

On September 25th, 1857, a British officer named William Hodson led a contingent of Sikh troops to arrest the last Mughal Emperor and his three fugitive sons. Soon thereafter he shot the three princes in cold blood and ordered the soldiers to transport their bodies to the city kotwali and lay them at the same spot where Guru Teg Bahadur had been executed 182 years earlier.  Ironically, in this way, another murderous imperial rationalized his own crimes by evoking the memory of a saintly man whose only fault had been to try to be the conscience keeper of his troubled land.