Everything is fair in love and war: Ram Madhav on Kashmir situation

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The idea of using a Kashmiri man as a human shield against angry stonepelters in Kashmir by a young army officer was the right thing as everything is fair in love and war, BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav said on Thursday.

"There would have been huge amount of loss of human life. He (Army Major) tried to avoid that... One can try and take a moral position on what he did was right or wrong. In a war and love, everything is fair," Madhav told CNN-News18 in an interview.

"In this particular case, the young Major was left with two options: one was to allow the mob to lynch 50 civilians and closely equal number of security forces personnel there and the other option before him was to indulge in indiscriminate firing. I compliment that Major for not allowing both these things to happen," he said.

Madhav said politicians should refrain from making such reckless comments as made by a BJP minister in Kashmir that bullets were the only way to deal with protesters.

"I disagree with this statement of the minister. Politicians better leave these matters to security forces. They know how to handle the situations," he said.

He said those who talk about human rights were not "lily white" themselves.

"Those who talk about human rights, what they do all over the world is known to everybody. What America is doing, what Russia is doing? Let them stop giving lectures about human rights... We are not bothered about what world thinks about us today," the BJP leader said.

Agreeing that there was definitely a change in the situation in the Valley, which was a concern for all, Madhav said that BJP would have to take its responsibility.

"There is definitely a change in the situation in the Valley. Now we are the ruling party. We cannot go and blame somebody else. We are a ruling party in the state, we are the ruling party at the Centre. We have to take the responsibility for it and we have to try and improve the situation," he said.

He denied that the BJP's alliance with People's Democratic Party (PDP) had become a liability.

"We are there, we are together with a purpose and our purpose is to provide good governance in the state. Our government of both parties are striving utmost to deliver. Situation is difficult but such situations have been there in the Valley so many times before," Madhav said.

However, he added that the situation was not due to Kashmiris' grievances alone and had an external factor, too.

"Nobody is closing eyes to the grievances of the people. But if you try to tell me that everything that the youngsters are doing in the Valley is because of grievances alone, I disagree with you. There is a large amount of propaganda mainly sponsored by our neighbouring country that is responsible for this kind of raised tempers leading to these situations," he said.

He also said there was no reason to smell a rat in the Assam government's population control policy.

"The government said here is a proposal by which I want my state's population to be contained. Where is the question of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist? It is applicable to all," he said.