Revision summary
Hearts and minds means restoring local trust so terrorists lose shelter and recruits. In Jammu and Kashmir this sits beside, not instead of, counter-terror operations. The Prime Minister's Development Package 2015 funded roads, power, tourism and social infrastructure. The 2019 reorganisation created Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh; local and DDC elections reopened one political rung. Youth schemes and the migrant-return package exist; jobs and actual return remain limited, so resolution is incomplete.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
A terrorist group needs silence, fear, or sympathy from the local population to move, hide, and recruit. Winning hearts and minds means restoring ordinary trust in the State: safety, a job, a school, and a political voice that is not only a security camp. In Jammu and Kashmir that work sits beside counter-terror operations; it does not replace them.
Body
Why hearts and minds
- Intelligence and arrests shrink a module. They do not by themselves stop a new teenager joining if schools, jobs and grievance politics stay closed.
- Excess or opaque force without accountability and services hands a propaganda win to the insurgent.
- Restoration of trust is therefore a security method, not a soft extra.
Measures in Jammu and Kashmir
- Security and law: sustained counter-terror operations, a thinner but still real militant presence in some districts, and the legal frame after 5 August 2019, when Article 370’s special provisions were ended and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 created the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh. Local body and District Development Council elections were held to reopen a rung of electoral politics. Full Statehood remains a stated political debate, not a completed restoration.
- Development: the Prime Minister's Development Package (PMDP), 2015, for roads, power, tourism, health and education projects in the then State; later infrastructure such as tunnels, rail towards the Valley, and power transmission. Delivery has been uneven across items; the package is a programme, not proof that every project is finished.
- Youth and return: skill and job windows such as UDAAN (later wound down or merged), Himayat, and Mission Youth in the Union Territory; sports and start-up outreach; and a long-running package for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants, which has seen only limited actual return.
- Rights and outreach: outreach to families, surrender-and-rehabilitation policies for some militants, and attempts to restore tourism and pilgrimage as normal life. Human-rights complaints and communication shutdowns in crisis periods have cut the other way.
Honest limit
- Hearts and minds fail if development is only a press note, if youth schemes do not become jobs, or if political participation stays thinner than before 2019. Conflict resolution here is partial and contested, not a closed chapter.
Flow diagram
Conclusion
In terrorism-affected areas, trust is part of security. In Jammu and Kashmir the Government has mixed operations with PMDP-type investment, Union Territory administration after 2019, local elections, and youth schemes. Those measures restore some ordinary life. They do not by themselves equal a finished political settlement.
Quick related
Students also ask
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The use of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) by our adversaries across the borders to ferry arms/ammunitions, drugs, etc., is a serious threat to the internal security. Comment on the measures being taken to tackle this threat.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2023 · Q10). View answer →
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Did 2019 end the need for hearts-and-minds work?
No. Legal change and operations are not the same as restored trust. Youth jobs and political voice still decide recruitment.
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Is PMDP the same as Article 370 policy?
No. PMDP is a 2015 development package. The 2019 steps are a constitutional and administrative change.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2026 · Q10 · GS III · 10 marks
Ladakh is strategically located between China and Pakistan. As a measure to win hearts and minds of locals, discuss the Border Area Development Programmes (BADP) by the Central Government and civic actions by the Army. Also discuss demand of promulgation of provision of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for Ladakh. -
2025 · Q9 · GS III · 10 marks
Terrorism is a global scourge. How has it manifested in India? Elaborate with contemporary examples. What are the counter measures adopted by the State? Explain.
More from this topic
Q10 · UPSC Mains 2026 · GS III · 10 marks · Solution
Ladakh is strategically located between China and Pakistan. As a measure to win hearts and minds of locals, discuss the Border Area Development Programmes (BADP) by the Central Government and civic actions by the Army. Also discuss demand of promulgation of provision of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for Ladakh.
Border Security and Organised Crime
• **Strategic Location:** Ladakh sits between China and Pakistan, making local civilian support vital for national security in this sensitive frontier. • **BADP Focus:** The Border Area Development Programmes bridge remote infrastructure gaps by funding schools, health centres, and local connectivity. • **Livelihood Growth:** BADP aims to reduce regional imbalances by empowering remote border habitations with sustainable economic opportunities. • **Army Civic Action:** Through Sadbhavana projects, the Indian Army builds local trust via healthcare camps, skill centres, and educational support. • **Humanitarian Aid:** The military provides vital winter stocking, high-altitude disaster relief, and youth engagement tours in isolated valleys. • **Sixth Schedule Demand:** Locals demand Sixth Schedule status to protect indigenous Ladakhi culture, land ownership, and demographic identity. • **Autonomous Governance:** This constitutional demand seeks to empower Hill Councils with greater legislative and financial decision-making powers.
Q9 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS III · 10 marks · Solution
Terrorism is a global scourge. How has it manifested in India? Elaborate with contemporary examples. What are the counter measures adopted by the State? Explain.
Border Security and Organised Crime
Terrorism is political violence meant to frighten civilians and coerce a state. India has faced it in Kashmir, in city bombings such as 26/11, in small hinterland modules, and online. Some Northeast and Khalistani violence uses the same methods. Counters include UAPA and the NIA, intelligence fusion, NSG, border and coastal security, and terror-finance rules. Politics and deradicalisation lag force; rights costs of broad laws remain a live issue.
Q19 · UPSC Mains 2024 · GS III · 15 marks · Solution
India has a long and troubled border with China and Pakistan, fraught with contentious issues. Examine the conflicting issues and security challenges along the border. Also give out the development being undertaken in these areas under the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) and Border Infrastructure andManagement (BIM) Scheme.
Border Security and Organised Crime
With Pakistan the live issues are the LoC, PoK, Sir Creek, Siachen, infiltration and drone-aided terror or narcotics. With China the issues are an undelimited LAC, Aksai Chin, Arunachal, patrol face-offs and a roads-and-villages race after Galwan 2020. A two-front stress is the strategic envelope. BADP funds border-block development so hamlets do not empty. BIM funds fencing, lighting, BOPs, roads and surveillance; it must not reduce the border resident to a cleared field of fire.