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April 10, 2026
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"Sialkot has many historical, religious and romantic associations with the past According to popular legends the city was founded by Raja Sala, the uncle of the Pandavas and re-founded, in the time of Vikramaditya, by Raja Salivahan who built the fort and the city on their present sites Puran Bhagat, the saint and hero of popular romances, who refused the incestuous advances of his step-mother and was made to undergo horrible tortures, was the son of this Sahvahan The well in which he was thrown by the order of the wicked Rant lies a few miles from Sialkot and, until its desecration and partial demolition by the Muslims in August 1947, used to be a place of pilgrimage There 1s a Sikh shrine dedicated to Guru Nanak and near it Darbar Baoh Sahib, a covered well, built by a Rayput disciple of Baba Nanak Both places are held in great veneration by the Sikh community. During the Moghul times, Sialkot became the headquarters of a fiscal district and has renamed so to the present day The Emperor Jahangir passed through the district on his way to Kashmir and recorded in his diary that he found the surroundings delightful."
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.