In a recent interview that Army General Bipin Rawat gave to the news agency PTI, in which he defended Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi – the officer accused of using a Kashmiri man as a “human shield” last month – the chief of Army staff made a series of startling statements that perhaps no Army chief in India has ever made before.

Rawat said that he wished those pelting stones at security forces in the Valley “were firing weapons at us” as that would give him, and the Army, reason to deliver a proportionate response.

“People are throwing stones at us. People are throwing petrol bombs at us. If my men ask me what do we do, should I say, just wait and die? I will come with a nice coffin with a national flag and I will send your bodies home with honour. Is it what I am supposed to tell them as chief?” he said. Again, as chief of the armed forces he makes the correct statement. He cannot be sympathetic to people attacking his men. But why should the elite force be engaging with stone-pelters, apparently flash mobs without a leader?

Rawat’s comments are in line with a shrill public discourse that has become increasingly common today, especially in television studios where retired generals, egged on by anchors desperate for people to watch their channels, scream for war, secure in the knowledge that they will never have to fight one.

What Kashmir requires at this point is a political solution. The government should be explaining to the country whether the Army must be in an uncomfortable situation like this and for how long.