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April 10, 2026
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"I woke up early, probably on my own. More likely I was awakened by the voices of the Congress boys who went around the city that morning -- as they had been doing for more than a week -- loudly chanting nationalist songs. I imagine I was quite excited. The previous afternoon we -- all my friends in the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) and I -- had celebrated the creation of Pakistan by holding a rally in front of our small office-cum-library. The crescent-and-star-on-green flag of the Muslim League was raised and saluted, poems were sung, and speeches were listened to. Later, as we were dispersing, someone had suggested that we should further display our commitment to the Muslim League and the Quaid-e Azam by "boycotting" the ceremonies at the school the next day. There was an immediate agreement. We were fearless Muslims. Hadn't we just won Pakistan "laughingly?" (After the announcement of the Partition and the acceptance speeches of the leaders on 3 June 1947, some enthusiastic slogan-maker of the Muslim League had come up with a hot one: hans ke liya hai Pakistan / lar ke lenge Hindustan.)"
"So there we were finally at the western gate, waving the crescent-and-star and shouting the familiar slogans: Pakistan Zindabad... Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad... Na'ra-e Takbir, Allah-o-Akbar... Hans ke liya hai Pakistan, Lar ke lenge Hindustan. In front of us was the low boundary wall, behind which was the front yard of the school where we could see our fellow students assembling and forming rows. Most of them came through the eastern gate, for it was closer to most of the city, but quite a few also went past us. Given the population of the city, most of them were Hindus -- at the time there were only two Sikh families in the city and only one Sikh boy in our school. But, Muslim or Hindu, none of the boys going in challenged us. (We, on the other hand, probably accosted the Muslim boys and tried to stop them from going in. We had plenty of practice of doing that the previous year, during the provincial assembly elections, much to the discomfort of the numerically fewer kangresi Muslim boys.)"
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.