Guru Tegh Bahadur

Facts for Prelims

Guru Tegh Bahadur

News: PM Narendra Modi will address the nation from the Red fort on the 400thParkashPurab of Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur on 21st April. He will also release a commemorative coin and postage stamp on the occasion.

About:
• Guru Tegh Bahadur was the ninth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion. He was born at Amritsar in 1621 and was the youngest son of Guru Hargobind.
• His term as Guru ran from 1665 to 1675. One hundred and fifteen of his hymns are in Guru Granth Sahib.
• Revered by many as ‘Hind Di Chadar’ or Protector of Hindu religion, Guru Tegh Bahadur was instrumental in resisting the forced conversion to Islam under Mughals.
• He stood up for the rights of Kashmiri Pandits who approached him against religious persecution by Aurangzeb.
• He was publicly executed in 1675 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi for refusing to convert to Islam.
• Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, one of the oldest and most iconic Sikh shrines in Delhi, was established in 1783 to mark the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur. It marks the site where the Sikh Guru was beheaded.

Impact of his martyrdom:
• The execution hardened the resolve of Sikhs against religious oppression and persecution.
• His martyrdom helped all Sikh Panths consolidate to make the protection of human rights central to its Sikh identity.
• Inspired by him, his nine-year-old son, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, eventually organized the Sikh group into a distinct, formal, symbol-patterned community that came to be known as Khalsa (Martial) identity.