First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"One must resign oneself to the will of God at the cost of any pain and any sacrifice."
"If I die for another hundred, I will be reborn another hundred times: God is with me and I am not afraid!"
"(To the twenty-two civilians sentenced to death by firing squad) You only live once, you only die once."
"[He stands out for his innate need] to help others, combining his early feelings of adoration for God and affection for his fellow man with the traditional qualities of a police officer: love of country, courage, spirit of sacrifice and sense of duty."
"The history of the Italian Carabinieri shows that the heights of holiness can be reached in the faithful and generous fulfilment of the duties of one's state. I am thinking here of your colleague, Sergeant Salvo d'Acquisto, awarded a gold medal for military valour, whose cause of beatification is under way."
"To fully understand Salvo D'Acquisto, we must retrace the path of his upbringing, first his childhood in the reassuring circle of his family, then his professional life: a wealth of moral notions, religious precepts and edifying examples is the solid foundation on which his character was built. It is in his genuine popular faith and pride in belonging to the Carabinieri that we must seek the stimulus, the spiritual detonator of his sublime gesture, which synthesises two forms of heroism that are only apparently distant but both attributable to the voluntary offering of life: the secular heroism of the soldier and the heroism of the Christian martyr. Yet, how natural was that supreme decision, dictated by a force that was not at all mysterious, reminding him of the simplest and most arduous of a soldier's duties: a sense of responsibility towards himself. Aware that he and no one else was the representative of the state, he and no one else the guarantor of a public service whose purpose was order and justice, he did not shirk these duties and paid the price personally. More than anyone else, therefore, Salvo D'Acquisto became the perfect symbol of the spirit of sacrifice and dedication of the Carabinieri, a symbol that in the collective imagination of our people identifies the legendary history of the Benemerita."
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.