UPSC Mains 2019 GS Paper 3 Q9: model answer
The banning of ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’ in Jammu and Kashmir brought into focus the role of over-ground workers (OGWs) in assisting terrorist organizations. Examine the role played by OGWs in assisting terrorist organizations in insurgency affected areas. Discuss measures to neutralize influence of OGWs.
What the question wants
Examine how over-ground workers (OGWs) help terrorist groups in insurgency areas and suggest how to neutralise them, with the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami J&K as context.
How to structure it
Who, role, counter.
- Who OGWs are
- What they do
- Measures
How to think it through
Jamaat-e-Islami J&K banned Feb 2019 under UAPA, extended 2024 for five years. OGWs: sympathisers who aren't armed: shelter, food, intelligence, couriers, recruitment, stone pelting mobilisation, funds, propaganda; 'hybrid terrorists'. Measures: intelligence, UAPA prosecution, PSA, financial tracking, dismissals of government employees under Article 311(2)(c), counter-narrative, jobs, family outreach.
Model answer
For every gunman in the forests of Kashmir, there are several helpers who never carry a gun. These over-ground workers (OGWs) feed, shelter and guide the militant. When the Centre banned Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K, under the UAPA in February 2019, and extended the ban in 2024, the spotlight fell on this support network.
What OGWs do
- Logistics: food, shelter, transport and safe houses.
- Intelligence: they track the movement of security forces.
- Couriers of messages, cash and weapons.
- Recruitment of young boys through social circles and mosques.
- Funds through hawala and charity fronts.
- Mobilising crowds to obstruct encounters.
- Some become 'hybrid' terrorists who strike once and slip back into normal life.
Neutralising them
- Human intelligence and technical surveillance to map networks.
- Legal action under the UAPA and the J&K Public Safety Act, with fair procedure.
- Financial tracking and seizure of properties used for terror.
- Action on employees who aid terror, under Article 311(2)(c).
- Counselling, jobs and sports for youth on the fringe.
Cut the supply line, and the gunman in the forest becomes a hungry, blind and lonely man.
Draw: A spider web: the militant at the centre and OGW strands for food, shelter, intelligence, money and recruits.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
OGWs, Jamaat-e-Islami J&K ban (Feb 2019, extended 2024), UAPA, PSA, hybrid terrorists, hawala, Article 311(2)(c), HUMINT, counter-radicalisation.
Where most answers lose marks
- Forgetting the ban on Jamaat as context, or proposing only arrests without social measures.
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Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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