First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"If you stop, who will fight for you?"
"How will a monument help somebody whose personal integrity has been violated and who needs compensation for medical support and money to go back to school, who needs her children to be educated…The memorialization means nothing to me if my child doesn’t go to school, if the women can’t go back to school, if they don’t get medical help, if their fistula is not fixed, if their bodies are not healed… that means nothing"
"What if my daughter asks me about it? What am I going to answer? Does it matter to me what my in-laws think? What does it mean to me when my child starts condemning me? What if my husband leaves me? You manage the dynamics around you immediately, and then you develop resilience"
"My singular motivation is that… if [the government] is responsible for me, when I do something bad it throws me in the slammer. In the same way, when it does badly, it should be thrown in the slammer"
"My personal vision is that I will do all I can do with the ability I have"
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.