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April 10, 2026
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"Five or six guys get up on the bimah on the stage, and they are facing the congregation. They get their talit over their heads, and they start this chanting, I think it's called duchening. And my father said to me, "Don't look!" So everybody's got their eyes covered with their hands, or they have got their talit down over their faces, or turned away, turned their back to these guys. ... And then the leader would shout out: "Yeborechecho!" ["The Lord bless thee!"] And the rest of them would respond: "Yeborechecho adonai v'yishmerecho!" ["The Lord bless thee and keep thee!"] It was chilling. Whoa, something major is happening here! So I peeked, and I saw them with their hands stuck out from beneath their talit like this, towards the congregation. ... I had no idea what was going on, but the sound of it and the look of it was magical."
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.