Thread by @GurjantSM

Sikh Individuality & Gurmukhi:

"Guru Angad employed the following means to secure the individuality of those who had accepted Guru Nanak's mission.

The invention of Gurmukhi characters which became the special Script the Sikhs, and in which all their sacred books are written."

"Gurmukhs, in the Adi Granth and generally in the Punjab, is applied to this who faithfully follow the commands of the Guru, as opposed to Manmukh, or one who looks to his own will for help and guidance."

"The very name of the new Script, reminded those who employed it, of their duty towards the Guru and constantly kept alive in their minds the consciousness that they were something distinct from the common mass of Hinduism, that they were regenerated, liberated and saved."

"It also dealt a powerful blow to the domination of the priestly class. The importance of the Brahmin greatly rested upon his knowledge of Sanskrit which was the language of religion."

"When Punjab, written in Gurmukhi characters, attained to the same position of sanctity, as it soon after did, the prestige of the Brahmin was bound to suffer."

"The third effect of the introduction of this new alphabet was to increase the number of literates, and, by making religious literature accessible to the masses in their mother-tongue, to facilitate the reform work of the Gurus."

"The post-partition Hindu-Sikh estrangement which has now gradually crystallised around the question of the GurmukhI script, which the Hindus in the Punjab repudiate with such vociferous passion, becomes more comprehensible in the light of this assessment of the+

implications of the use of Gurmukhi script by the Sikhs in the past; the Gurmukhi script is the badge and guarantee
of a distinct and separate Sikh entity and, thus, its prevalence and continuity is a hindrance to the much-desired final liquidation of Sikh identity."

Source: Transformation of Sikhism by Gokul Chand Narang