Khojki & Hindus/ India Gandhi's "minority demonisation"

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Allen Thrasher wrote:

>By the way, I would suspect that Khojki was developed by and for
>Hindus, in accord with David Dirringer's principle "Language follows
>religion."  Frequently the script that is used for a sacred language
>is then adopted and adapted for a secular one.

"Khojki" means the script of the (Ismaili) Khojas. You can see some
some Ismaili Khojaki manuscripts on the web. Many of these manuscripts
use traditional Hindu expression for conveying the Ismaili message
like "Buj Nirinian", "Athar Ved", "Budh Avatar" etc.

However Khojaki was not invented by Khojas, but rather used by them.
Before them it (or an earlier form of it) was used in the region by
others, specially Lohana and Bhatia traders. Incidentally a large
fraction of Ismailis are former Lohanas and Bhatias. Jinnah, founder
of Pakistan, of Bhatia ancestery, was a Khoja before he converted
to Sunni sect.

This is somewhat similar to Gurumukhi, used by the Sikh Gurus. They
used a form of the the takari script of the the Khatri traders which
itself was a form of Sharada script of Kashmir/hills.

Oberoi wrote:

>Indira Gandhi's well known Hindu mobilisation and minority
>demonisation campaigns are only one facet of this.

She was not one of my favorite politician (but she was popularly
elected by people on several occasions). But what "minority
demonization" Oberoi is talking about? She was in some sense
more Hindu that her father (who was a well known agnostic),
but she married a Zoroastrian and her two sons married a Christian
and a Sikh girl. How exactly did she "demonize" a minority?
And what "Hindu mobilisation"?

Yashwant