Panjabrao Deshmukh

Panjabrao Deshmukh depicted on 1999 stamp of India

Panjabrao Shamrao Deshmukh (27 December 1898 – 10 April 1965), also known as Bhausaheb Deshmukh was a social activist and a leader to farmers in India. He was the Minister of Agriculture in the first cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952.

Quotes

• Is it then wise that we should throw open our citizenship so indiscriminately? I do not side any ground whatsoever that we should do it, unless it is the specious, oft repeated and nauseating principle of ‘secularity’ of the state. I think we are going too far in this business of secularity. Does it mean that we must wipe out our own people that we must wipe them out in order to prove our secularity, that we must wipe out Hindus and Sikhs under the name of secularity, that we must undermine everything that is sacred and dear to the Indians to prove that we are secular? ... I am sure the popularity of those who take that view will not last long in India.
  • in Constituent Assembly Debates. Official Report, 351–425. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 2003. quoted from Nani Gopal Mahanta - Citizenship Debate over NRC and CAA_ Assam and the Politics of History (2021, SAGE Publications India)