In one cold winter morning in the upper areas of the Kupwara district, a team of soldiers belonging to the Indian Army stops a mule track that has been in use for years to smuggle drugs across the Line of Control. The amount seized on that fateful day, which was almost three kilograms of high-quality heroin stuffed into hollow wood pieces, gives an account of history that goes way back and much darker than the decades of anti-insurgency operations that have plagued the valley. Kashmir’s new war is not just being fought with ammunition; it is being fought with a powder, a syringe, and the destruction of a generation from within.

According to security experts as well as army personnel having spent time in Kashmir, the drugs that make their way into the region are neither accidental nor spontaneous. They are very much purposeful. Various intelligence briefs have consistently shown that the terror groups operating from within Pakistan and the controllers behind them on the other side of the border have used narcotic drugs as a means of destabilizing the region. In essence, what happens is that when a young person is hooked on heroin, he cannot be expected to march peacefully for his cause, succeed in studies, or plan a future.
The Golden Crescent, which stretches over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran and is known as the hub from which narcotics enter India, has provided the Army with one of its toughest challenges to date. Given the difficult geography of Kashmir, with its porous borders at high altitude, thick forests, and mountains, the region is most vulnerable to the infiltration of narcotic shipments through a variety of ways and they are, using drones, human smugglers, or even catapults. The Army has had to adapt to any and all forms of drug smuggling techniques devised by the perpetrators.
The extent of the Army's operations against the infiltration of narcotics in Kashmir is simply mind-blowing. Over the past few years, Army patrols in special formations to target the smuggling of narcotics along the border areas have been conducted in large numbers. Thousands of kilos worth hundreds of crores of rupees worth of heroin, opium, cannabis, and other synthetic drugs have been confiscated by the Army. In coordinated missions with the Narcotics Control Bureau, J&K Police, and BSF, several cross-border narcotics supply chains have been broken down.
A highly decorated infantry officer, speaking anonymously, explained the problem clearly. "The smugglers know these mountains better than any map does," he stated. "They keep changing their routes, some using rivers, some using ridgelines our vehicles cannot reach. We need to outsmart, outrun, and outlast them – and we do." In recent years, the success of the Indian Army in intercepting shipments of contraband has been bolstered greatly by the use of sniffer dogs, aircraft, intelligence-gathering networks, and night vision equipment.
Operation Sadbhavana: Creating Good Will in the Drug War
Seizures are merely the first step towards victory, for the second step, arguably the more difficult one, lies in repairing the harm already caused. The Indian Army has long recognized that there can be no lasting peace in Kashmir without both security and development. Within the context of Operation Sadbhavana, which means "goodwill," the Indian Army has devoted crores of rupees and countless man-hours to social welfare programs throughout the Kashmir Valley. One of the foremost tasks before it today is the rehabilitation of addicts.
Now, Army-managed Goodwill Schools and community centres operating in border villages have anti-drug awareness classes included in their curriculum. From time to time, doctors from camps set up by the Army Medical Corps carry out health check-up campaigns in difficult areas and provide de-addiction services as well as psychological counseling and guidance to drug abuse victims. Often, it is the doctor of the camp who first identifies the symptoms of drug abuse in an otherwise seemingly normal young man from a village where there hasn't been any visit from any government doctor for years.
The full significance of the Army anti-drug campaign cannot be understood without considering its human impact on the families that are victims of it. In a small village on the outskirts of Sopore once infamous for militant activities and now known for drug addiction, a mother tells the story of her 22-year-old son, who once seemed like a bright student but now spends his days in stupor selling off everything he can find to buy heroin. And she is not alone. There are many cases like hers reported at the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Srinagar.
The social workers in the Valley speak of the ongoing drug problem as being a "second insurgency" that does not use bullets to do damage but achieves an equally efficient result through the destruction of families. The Army's constant efforts in these areas, coupled with their insistence that addiction is a sickness and not a weakness, has served to peel back the veil of shame in these societies to allow addicts and their families to get help. In time, this cultural change – as difficult as it may be, could prove to be the lasting achievement.
The technology aspect of the drug operations by the Army has seen significant improvements in recent times as well. The appearance of drug-smuggling drones – small, quick and hard to detect on regular radars – has necessitated a new tactical approach. Various counter-drone units and radars, as well as the deployment of electronic jamming devices, have been deployed in strategic areas along the Line of Control. However, when such drones are downed, they provide far more than just a seizure of drugs.
In the field, specialized infantry teams collaborate closely with dog teams specifically trained to sniff out narcotics. The dogs often beloved by their masters as much as any soldier on the ground are behind some of the biggest seizures ever made. As the Army puts it, these aren't assets. They're comrades.
The Army's senior leadership is brutally honest about one thing: No matter how many border patrols and drugs seizures there are, these won't solve Kashmir's narcotics problem. It's the demand side of the supply-demand chain, the boys and girls who have been lost to addiction, who need long-term solutions in the form of education, jobs, mental wellness, and social empowerment. The Army can fence off borders and seize shipments, but it can't restore what addiction has taken away without the support of the state, of civil society, of families.
And still, the role played by the army in this multifront war cannot be substituted with any other. Without sufficient civilian facilities in the border areas, it often becomes the only one available – the only government official, the only doctor, the only counselor, and the only companion the troubled family can have. It becomes evident then that in many ways, as well as at many places, the Indian Army is not just a bearer of arms.
“The soldier who stands at the border at night and the soldier who sits with a grieving family in a village the next morning, they are the same soldier. That is what makes the Indian Army different."

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