The last time Pakistan operated a submarine in the Bay of Bengal, during the 1971 war with India, it was destroyed. The South Asian nation did not possess the means to venture back into the strategic waters for more than half a century. That changed a few weeks ago.
Last month, Pakistan brought home a new attack submarine from China. The navy had commissioned the PNS Hangor in April and the submarine, the first of eight of its class to be inducted, sailed into the Karachi port on 11 June and was feted with the beating of drums and the sounding of trumpets.
Commodore Omer Farooq, mission commander of the new flotilla, says the advanced submarine will be a “gamechanger” as it will extend the navy’s operation reach well beyond its own waters, enabling it to impose a sustained presence in the eastern Indian Ocean, where the PNS Ghazi suffered a humiliating rout in 1971.
The Hangor sports a shiny black, teardrop-shaped hull and, with a length of 76m and a beam of 8.4m, is noticeably larger than most contemporary conventional submarines.
The induction of the Hangor fleet will allow the navy to gradually replace its ageing and near-obsolete French-made Agosta submarines.
The Hangor boasts the Air Independent Propulsion technology, meaning it can remain underwater for weeks, adding to its stealth capability.
Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari went to Sanya in China’s Hainan province to receive the vessel and announced that the Hangor fleet would be armed with advanced weapons and navigation systems. The new submarines, he added, would help his country preserve maritime order and stability in the region.
Although India operates leagues ahead with its fleet of 19 submarines, the Hangor fleet offers Pakistan a bare minimum but powerful presence against the vessels of its chief rival.
A government official said earlier that four of the submarines would be made in China and as many in Pakistan under a transfer-of-technology programme. The timeline for the fleet to be assembled could extend up to 2032, according to Pakistani naval experts.
China previously played down the deal as “normal military equipment cooperation” between allies but experts cautioned India it would finally be faced with superior military technology in the Indian Ocean, that too at a time of rising tensions.
The rival neighbours came to the brink of war last year after Indian airstrikes across the border sparked four days of intense fighting that left hundreds of people dead.
India launched the strikes after blaming Pakistan for a militant attack in the restive Himalayan region of Kashmir that killed nearly two dozen people, mostly Hindu tourists from the mainland, in late April. But India lost multiple aircraft during what it called Operation Sindoor and experts were quick to credit the Pakistani military’s Chinese hardware.
Retired Rear Admiral Syed Faisal Ali Shah argues that the conflict busted “the myth of conventional disparity” between Pakistan and India, and that the Hangor fleet only strengthens his nation’s hand.
“It was not only the air battle,” the former Pakistani admiral tells The Independent. “At sea, the Indian navy loitered at a distance of 400-500 nautical miles, which is 700-900km from Karachi, but couldn’t move forward, a risk calculation they made.”
“In any future conflict we have with India, these submarines will further multiply the navy’s capability, especially underwater capability, and this should be a source of concern for Indian military leadership,” he says.
The submarines, he says, will also enable Pakistan’s navy to protect “the sea lines of communication in the Bay of Bengal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, as well as the Gulf of Aden”.
Shah acknowledges India is still ahead by commissioning three nuclear submarines and planning for six more, but argues the rival nation should nonetheless be concerned. “In my experience,” he says, “the threat of one submarine and 10 submarines is almost equal because unless you find that submarine underwater, the ships are not comfortable operating in that area.”
Dinakar Peri, a security studies fellow at Carnegie India, notes that while Pakistan currently operates just three Agosta submarines, India’s sub-surface fleet is also limited to 16 mostly ageing submarines.
“On a larger scale, however, India’s naval prowess has been wider and far more capable than has been demonstrated,” he says. “On the contrary, Pakistan’s navy has been rather limited, both in size and capability, as seen during Operation Sindoor last year when they were largely related to the coast. However, the new additions and the larger modernisation might require Indian planners to revisit tactics if Sindoor 2 were to happen in the near future.”
The new deployment, Peri argues, helps China as well.
“The China-Pakistan nexus was on display during Operation Sindoor in May 2025. But beyond arming Pakistan as a balance to India, from an operational perspective in the maritime domain, it’s going to be limited,” he says. “China’s maritime expansion and modernisation is going on at an unprecedented scale and that is a bigger concern as is the frequent deployment of research vessels coinciding with Indian missile tests.”
So, are India, Pakistan and China in an arms race?
Shah argues that there’s indeed an arms race underway but it involves more players than India, China and Pakistan.
He refers to Aukus, the military bloc of Australia, the UK and the US. “If it’s an arms race, it’s a domino effect,” he says. “It’s because of certain powers that do not reside in this region, that are extra-regional powers, that have instigated an arms race here inside in our region.”
Aukus, announced in 2021, involves the three countries building a new generation of nuclear-powered attack submarines and cooperating in other areas of advanced defence technology.
In any case, Peri argues, overall maritime combat potential continues to be overwhelmingly in India’s favour even as it strengthens anti-submarine warfare capabilities with the induction of the P-8I long range patrol aircraft and MH-60R multi-role helicopters. In the short term, though, the Indian navy may feel some squeeze.
“The new submarines will surely boost Pakistan’s anti-access and area denial capabilities in the Arabian Sea while India’s submarine fleet remains constrained for some time,” he explains. “That means India’s maritime strength viv-a-vis Pakistan will see some erosion, especially as the Indian navy’s sub-surface fleet is ageing and modernisation is delayed.”
But Indian planners are well aware of Pakistan’s new capabilities, he says, and they will factor them in their strategic thinking.
