First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"I didn’t know that people could be bigoted even as they were smiling at you. It’s hard to understand when you see people saying that they love you, but they’re afraid of you at the same time."
"At some point, political pragmatism has to reckon with the reality of climate change. You can’t negotiate with science. You can’t meet it halfway."
"People in the penthouse are giving too much to charity? Awesome! But they're also shaping society without our consent. Not awesome! And as long as there are people with so much money in so much power, we'll have no say. The only real solution here is making sure that they're not that rich in the first place."
"This problem is so much bigger than individual bad cops. There is a separate legal and political framework that shields cops from consequences, gives them special rights when defending themselves, and often trains them to fear the communities that they’re supposed to protect."
"Look, I know this seems like the part where I make an impassioned argument for why immigrants are good for America. You know the hits. “This country was built on immigrants. They boost the economy. Rihanna.” That’s all true. But that is not why we have asylum. We have asylum because it is the morally right thing to do. These are people escaping murder and kidnappings and gang violence."
"We eventually transitioned out of shock and into mourning. As Muslim Americans, however, we also had to contend with fear as well. We were held responsible, as a group, for the terrorist attacks or seen as a threat. Suddenly our religion was dangerous and our American-ness called into question. The comedian Hasan Minhaj put it so well in his Netflix special, Homecoming King: On September 11, "everyone in America felt like their country was under attack," he said, but on September 12 and so many nights after that, I felt like my family's love and loyalty for this country was under attack.""
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.