India, Nov. 24 -- Long before constitutional guarantees or modern rights charters, India witnessed a defining assertion of freedom of conscience. It came not from a monarch, parliament or court, but from the scaffold at Delhi's Chandni Chowk on 24 November 1675, when Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, chose martyrdom to defend the right of Hindus to practice their faith. Born in 1621 in Amritsar, Guru Tegh Bahadur was a saint, poet, warrior and thinker whose 115 hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib emphasise detachment, fearlessness, compassion and the sovereignty of the human soul. His life and writings prepared a society to confront intolerance with moral courage.

Guru Tegh Bahadur's martyrdom, often remembered for its religious greatne...