First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
""I was born in 1989, and my father, being a democracy activist, he was paying a lot of attention to what was going on in Tiananmen, in Beijing, at that time, so after the massacre, he named me Ti-Anna to commemorate the victims ... and also to celebrate the ideals of freedom and democracy. He really wanted to remember their courage."
"The conversations about human rights in China, they can be a little numbingly familiar after you talk about it."
"The values of freedom and democracy upon which America was founded are the same values that once inspired my father and are the ones to which he remains dedicated. Those values are not just every American’s birthright; they are the fundamental rights of all human beings."
"The truth is, the lives of activists are much more complicated than what the novel presented. My father was not a regular man nor a regular father. He gave himself to his cause, and our relationship was forged by distance. There is no resentment. The world needs people like my father."
"In a country without meaningful rule of law, my family has no means appeal my father's conviction, despite having secured exonerating evidence for the charges against him. The lawyers we've retained on his behalf are routinely intimidated by authorities, obstructed from visiting him and threatened with disbarment. Because of my outspokenness, the Chinese government repeatedly refuses my visa applications. Consequently I have been unable to visit him for the past seven years."
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.