When the Strait of Hormuz Enters the Indian Kitchen

 A few days ago, my sister dropped a message on our family WhatsApp group:

“Mera induction cooktop Jaipur mein hai kya?”

It was a funny line on the surface. Most of us have had an induction cooktop at some point in life — usually in hostel days, when it powered Maggi, chai and late-night experiments. Then adulthood arrives, LPG cylinders and piped gas take over, and the induction plate disappears into storage.

But the message stayed with me. Because it captured something larger: how a geopolitical conflict in India’s near neighbourhood can suddenly enter the Indian kitchen.

That is what the current Iran–US war, and the instability around the Strait of Hormuz, is really about for India. Not abstract geopolitics. Not just Brent prices on a terminal. But everyday vulnerability. Reuters reported this week that Iran has not formally closed the Strait, and some Indian vessels have been allowed through, but shipping remains disrupted enough for India to seek passage for more stranded ships. At the same time, the conflict has intensified, ceasefire efforts have stalled, and global concern around energy flows has risen sharply.

This is not just an oil story. It is a cooking gas story.


When Indians think of West Asia risk, the instinct is usually to think about crude oil. That matters, of course. But the more immediate household vulnerability may actually be LPG and gas.

The government itself said a few days ago that India imports about 60% of its LPG consumption, and around 90% of those LPG imports come through the Strait of Hormuz. That is a stunning figure because it tells you that a disruption in one narrow maritime corridor can quickly become an issue for Indian homes, restaurants and distributors.

The vulnerability does not stop at household cylinders. India’s gas system is exposed more broadly. Reuters reported that the current West Asia conflict has already hit LNG supplies enough for India to plan more coal use for summer power, while fertilizer plants were assured priority gas supplies. In other words, when gas gets squeezed, the stress does not stay inside the energy ministry. It spreads into electricity, fertilizers, industry and household fuel allocation.

That is why the induction-cooktop question is more profound than it seems. It is not really about a kitchen appliance. It is about whether electricity can gradually become the fallback layer beneath India’s cooking, mobility and industrial energy needs.

The Jaishankar irony

A few years ago, S. Jaishankar made a memorable line about Ukraine: Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems. The point was blunt and effective. Europe expected the world to internalize a war in its neighbourhood, while often failing to internalize crises elsewhere.

There is an irony now.

West Asia is, in strategic terms, much closer to India’s lived energy reality than Ukraine ever was. This is our extended neighbourhood. Its instability can affect our imported LPG, LNG, fertilizer economics, freight insurance, and eventually household budgets. We are now confronting a version of the same geopolitical truth: wars in one’s neighbourhood do not stay “regional” for long.

Which brings us to the SHANTI framework

This is why something that happened months ago looks more important in retrospect.

In late 2025, India moved to overhaul its civil nuclear architecture through the SHANTI Bill — the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India framework. Reuters reported that the reform was designed to end the old state monopoly, allow private participation, ease long-standing liability barriers, and support India’s target of scaling nuclear capacity dramatically over time. PIB material around the policy push says India wants to reach 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, up from under 9 GW today, while nuclear currently contributes only about 3.1% of India’s electricity generation.

Soon after, the Russia angle also became clearer. During Vladimir Putin’s December 2025 India visit, Reuters noted that nuclear cooperation remained central, with discussions spanning not just large reactors but also small modular reactors (SMRs). A PIB release specifically said that one new area of discussion with Rosatom included the construction of Russian-design SMRs in India.

This matters because SHANTI is not just another sectoral reform. It is an attempt to build more domestic, stable, non-fossil baseload electricity. And in a world where sea lanes can determine kitchen fuels, that starts to look less like climate policy and more like strategic insulation.

But let us be precise: nuclear will not “replace oil” in one stroke

This is the part where the analysis needs discipline.

Nuclear power does not directly replace crude oil in the way many casual discussions imply. Oil in India is still overwhelmingly a transport fuel and a petrochemical feedstock. Nuclear plants generate electricity. So the real transmission channel is indirect but powerful:

  • more nuclear power means more reliable domestic electricity,

  • more reliable electricity enables more induction cooking,

  • more electricity also supports electrified transport,

  • and over time this reduces the share of daily life dependent on imported hydrocarbons.

That is a very different claim from saying nuclear abolishes oil dependence. It does not.

India will still remain dependent on imported crude for transport, aviation, petrochemicals and a large share of industrial demand for a long time. It will also still need gas for fertilizers, city gas distribution, industry and balancing parts of the energy system. Even if India hits the 100 GW nuclear target by 2047, that is a decades-long transition, not an overnight substitution. Reuters and official statements around the nuclear push frame it as a major pillar of energy transition, not a total replacement of fossil imports.

So what does SHANTI really buy India?

Three things.

First, it can reduce the vulnerability of the power system. Reuters noted that India still leans on coal for roughly three-quarters of electricity, with gas-based generation often underutilized and vulnerable to fuel disruptions. Nuclear offers steady baseload electricity without requiring large, continuous seaborne hydrocarbon imports on the same scale as oil and LNG dependence.

Second, it can gradually create the conditions for electrification at the consumer edge. The induction cooktop is the symbolic example, but not the only one. The more abundant and dependable grid power becomes, the easier it is for households and firms to substitute imported fuel with domestic electricity in slices of everyday life.

Third, it gives India a strategic hedge. Not independence in the absolute sense — because uranium, technology partnerships and reactor supply chains still matter — but a hedge against a world where Hormuz, LNG cargoes, and Gulf instability can keep reappearing as policy shocks. India will not become energy-autarkic. But it can become less exposed at the margin, and in energy strategy those margins matter a great deal.

The bigger point

The phrase “energy security” often sounds abstract until it shows up in ordinary life.

A delayed tanker.
A costlier cylinder.
An anxious restaurant owner.
A society WhatsApp group asking about an induction cooktop lying somewhere in Jaipur.

That is why the SHANTI conversation deserves more attention than it gets. Not because nuclear alone will free India from imported oil and gas. It will not. But because it begins a structural shift — from importing ever more fuel, to generating more of our usable energy domestically.

And in the years ahead, that may be the more important distinction.

Not whether India can eliminate dependence.

But whether, each time West Asia catches fire, a little less of India has to feel it at the stove.