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Chandigarh: The commissioning of PNS Hangor, the first of eight Hangor-class air-independent propulsion (AIP)-equipped diesel-electric submarines (SSKs), into the Pakistan Navy (PN) on Thursday (April 30), highlights a widening contrast with the Indian Navy (IN)’s still-unfinished effort to finalise a comparable six-boat programme, nearly three decades after it was first conceived.

While Islamabad is already inducting new SSKs built with Chinese assistance, the IN remains locked in prolonged negotiations with Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) for six AIP-enabled submarines with land-attack capability, to be constructed under Project 75-I (P75-I) in an $8-10 billion joint venture, with Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) in Mumbai.

The obvious difference between the two rival navies lies in acquisition tempo and execution.

Pakistan has moved from contract to commissioning in about a decade, while India has spent nearly twice that period still navigating procurement and contract negotiations for a smaller, but broadly analogous class of SSKs.

This divergence is further sharpened by symbolism as much as by history, and the enduring undercurrent of India-Pakistan rivalry. The submarine’s name, Hangor (meaning shark), directly references the PN submarine that sank the IN frigate INS Khukri during the 1971 war – a legacy that continues to shape the competitive framing of undersea capability between the two opposing sides.

Hangor’s commissioning by Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari took place in Sanya, on the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island, marking a high-profile demonstration of deepening naval cooperation between the neighbours as part of their increasingly advanced and integrated military partnership. Significantly, Sanya hosts a major People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) submarine base, underscoring the strategic context of the SSK commissioning.

The PN’s Hangor SSKs are part of a wider China-Pakistan submarine programme valued at an estimated $5 billion, involving a total order of eight boats derived from the PLAN’s Type 039B/S20 design lineage.

Production is split evenly: four submarines are being first built in China by Wuchang Shipbuilding under the China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Corporation, and four thereafter at Pakistan’s Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works, under a transfer-of-technology arrangement.

All eight SSKs are, for now, scheduled for induction by 2028, a goal that analysts claim was ‘plausible’ under China’s support, given its highly........

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