UPSC Mains 2016 GS Paper 4 Q7: model answer
Anger is a harmful negative emotion. It is injurious to both personal life and work life. a) Discuss how it leads to negative emotions and undesirable behaviours. b) How can it be managed and controlled?
What the question wants
Explain how anger produces other negative emotions and harmful behaviour, and how it can be managed and controlled.
How to structure it
Two parts. [a] Chain from anger to harm [b] Management: immediate, long term, organisational
How to think it through
Anger → resentment, hatred, jealousy, guilt; behaviour: aggression, rash decisions, bias, broken relationships, health (hypertension), workplace hostility. Gita 2.62-63: from desire anger, from anger delusion, loss of memory, destruction of intellect. Management: pause/count, breathing, reframing, identify triggers, exercise, assertive not aggressive communication, mindfulness/vipassana, humour, delay decisions; organisational: grievance systems, workload.
Model answer
The Bhagavad Gita (2.62–63) describes a chain: desire leads to anger, anger to delusion, delusion to loss of memory, and loss of memory to the ruin of judgment. Anger rarely stays a single emotion.
(a) How anger leads to harm
- Other negative emotions: anger hardens into resentment, hatred and jealousy, and later into guilt and shame.
- Distorted judgment: an angry person sees threats everywhere and decides rashly.
- Undesirable behaviour: harsh words, aggression and revenge.
- At work: a short-tempered officer silences juniors, punishes complainants and damages team morale.
- Personal life: broken relationships, high blood pressure and stress-related illness.
(b) Managing and controlling anger
### In the moment
- Pause before responding: count, breathe, or leave the room.
- Delay decisions taken in anger; sleep on a harsh letter.
### Over time
- Self-awareness: know your triggers.
- Reframing: ask what else might explain the other person's behaviour.
- Assertive, not aggressive communication: say what is wrong without attacking the person.
- Exercise, meditation and vipassana reduce baseline stress.
### In organisations
- Fair grievance systems and reasonable workloads remove many triggers.
Anger is a signal worth hearing, but never a voice worth obeying.
Draw: A chain of links: desire → anger → delusion → lost memory → ruined judgment, with a pair of scissors labelled 'pause' cutting after 'anger'.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
anger, Gita 2.62–63, resentment, hatred, distorted judgment, workplace hostility, pause, delay decisions, triggers, reframing, assertive communication, vipassana.
Where most answers lose marks
- Saying anger must be suppressed entirely; the aim is to manage and redirect it.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
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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