Per
doc grid
grid(gca,'minor')
toggles the state of the minor grids and
grid on
turns only the major grid on. As the footnote says, use
hAx=gca; % avoid repetitive function calls
set(hAx,'xminorgrid','on','yminorgrid','on')
to unequivocally set them in 'on' position
ADDENDUM
It would seem a reasonable enhancement request to add the 'ON|OFF' values to the 'MINOR' keyword to provide the specific functionality of
set(hAx,'xminorgrid','on','yminorgrid','on')