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April 10, 2026
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"Sh. Abdullah’s sons were not priests and did not aim for that office. One of them worked for the national Iran Oil Company. Twenty-three years later, on my second trip to the Mandaeans in Ahwaz, the yalufa Sh. Salem Choheili told me that Sh. Abdullah — who had long since died — had appeared to him in a dream, asking why his son had tied up all the sheikh’s books and texts with rope and put them in a box. There, hidden and subject to decay, the texts were weeping. Sh. Choheili had then told the man’s sister about his dream, asking her to inquire on the matter with her brother. A suggestion was put forth: the next time I come visiting, I ought to bring money to pay the son, so that I could inspect the books to see if they are still all right."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.