Balraj Madhok

Balraj Madhok (25 February 1920 – 2 May 2016) was an Indian political activist and politician from Jammu.

Quotes

• The change of way of worship under duress or for other reasons has not changed their forefathers or their culture. Culture is associated with a country and not with a religion.
  • B. Madhok: Indianisation quoted in Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst

• On the grounds that since Muslims had become allergic to me they would not join the party.
  • The reason given by the BJS leadership when asking Balraj Madhok to leave the party, in 1973, according to B. Madhok.
  • Balraj Madhok: "A Question of Power", Indian Express, 29 October 1995. Quoted from Elst, K. BJP vis-à-vis Hindu Resurgence (1997)

Quotes about Madhok

• The strongest BJS party leader in the 1960s was undoubtedly Balraj Madhok (1921), who taught History in Delhi University.
  • Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst

• Madhok was a committed anti-Communist and this brought him in conflict with the more Left-leaning party leaders, who sought to form “unprincipled” alliances with the Left parties in states where this could ensure a non-Congress majority and an “opposition government” (as non-Congress governments were then called).
  • Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst

• For this reason, the erstwhile Jana Sangh leader Balraj Madhok, while remaining true to the old condemnation of the Mahatma as a false Messiah, at the same time denounced the murder on political as much as on moral grounds. He wrote that the murder was ‘a very un-Hindu act’, which saved the Mahatma from ‘the dustbin of history’ for which he was headed after the creation of Pakistan, and had crowned the victory of Islamic separatism over Gandhi’s Hindu vision of trans-sectarian unity.
  • Madhok, B. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2018). Why I killed the Mahatma: Uncovering Godse's defence. New Delhi : Rupa, 2018.