India, Nov. 12 -- The story of India's freedom deserves to be told from an earlier beginning.

It did not start with the 1857 revolt or Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran moment. It began with the execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, in 1675 - the first great act of resistance against religious tyranny - and continued through unbroken resistance until the foreign rule was overthrown in Punjab and the earliest variant of Swaraj was established in 1801 under Sikh monarch Ranjit Singh.

Three-and-a-half centuries ago, in Delhi's Chandni Chowk, a moment unfolded that changed India's moral course. Guru Tegh Bahadur offered his life not for his own faith but to defend everyone's right to practise theirs. His voluntary martyrdom declared...