Today is Shahidi Diwas, the day of Martyrdom of Ninth Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur Ji. This day is unique and remarkable in the history of Indian civilisation. The day will always serve as a reminder of the story of unparalleled valour shown and unmatched sacrifice made by native Indians, and their leaders, gurus, commanders, to protect dharma, when pitted against extreme cruelty, torture and barbarism of Mughal rulers bent upon imposing their religion on others.
This also highlights the difference between Indic dharma and non-Indic religions. Dharma tells you to stand for justice, even if the victim is not from your ilk. Non-Indic and western religions tell you to always stand in favour of your ilk, even if unjust.
Guru Teg Bahadur ji’s story is a chapter of Indian history that must be known, memorised, understood and taken to heart by every Indian.
Sadly, there is hardly an Indian history textbook followed by schools in India that has a chapter focused on Guru Teg Bahadur Ji and his supreme sacrifice and bravery. We have chapters after chapters focused on those Mughal kings who perpetrated extreme torture in the name of religion on the local Indian populations, communities and people, especially Aurangzeb. However, there is nothing that tells and reminds children of the golden phases of our history and heart-warming heroism of our forefathers.
Historically, marxist historians have been known to have a great loathing for indigenous culture and they go all out to erase every bit of it from the collective memory of any country. But in India the marxist historians have been extremely successful in tampering with collective memory, thanks to government patronage that they manged to wrest for themselves.
The history of Guru Teg Bahadur ji is ours. The history that is taught in our schools and textbooks is not ours. It seems to be written by someone who is either from Fergana, Uzbekistan from where Babur came, or by someone who is proud of the trail of destruction that Mughals heaped on India.
We all should be ashamed that all of us do not know enough about the life, deeds and heroism of Guru Teg Bahadur Ji yet.
However, if you know a little about him, you are fortunate to have been saved from the planned collective amnesia forced on all of us.
And if you know nothing about his life and heroism, you need to do it right now to keep your cultural sanity intact. Why not start searching on the Internet and start reading about the real history of India?
