6 min readMar 14, 2026 06:38 AM IST
First published on: Mar 14, 2026 at 06:38 AM IST
Since their introduction in 1955, two implements of Indian domestic life have remained steadfastly rooted in the national imagination as symbols of well-being as well as intergenerational class mobility. One is the pressure cooker and the other is the LPG cylinder. Their non-Indian origins notwithstanding, they have iconic status as objects that both represent modernity and give rise to bonds of family. In popular culture, the idea of the modern Indian family is indispensably built around the idea of a kitchen equipped with one or more pressure cookers and (and even more desirably) multiple LPG cylinders. The plump red cylinder with faded company logo is the object of both domestic aspirations and welfare. It is not for nothing that old films wanting to show domestic poverty would do it through a scene of a woman blowing into a smoke-spewing chulha, tears streaming down her face.
The political importance of the LPG cylinder — or, rather, the fuel that gives it meaning — was recognised in the 2016 Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), intended to provide clean cooking fuel to rural and poor households. The BJP’s publicity strategy centred around billboards that showed women in poses of happiness and gratitude as they receive cylinders from the Prime Minister. But the route to the well-being of the Indian kitchen and family is entangled in the global geopolitics of the US-Israeli war with Iran and the subsequent blocking of the Strait of Hormuz by the latter. The majority of LPG supplies are made up of imports and around 90 per cent of these pass through the Strait of Hormuz. While global media outlets give considerable airtime to energy experts who fret over the effect of petrol price increases in the US and Europe and the growing consumer anger, there is far less coverage of the effects of the war on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Multiple studies indicate that while the burning of solid fuel — wood, for example — adds to the overall air pollution, its health effects are most severe on the poor. There are four intertwined aspects to this: Class, caste, gender, and the rural-urban divide. At the most general level, biomass fuels affect the poor much more than the better-off both due to the density of the population where the poor are forced to live and the constricted nature of their residential dwellings. Individual households with a high level of biomass use suffer disproportionately whereas those who live in the locality but have a lower instance of using such fuel also suffer due to exposure to the outdoor air pollution in their locality.
Government data show that access to clean fuels such as LPG is crucially dependent on caste. In both urban and rural areas, for example, the percentage of upper-caste homes that use LPG as the main cooking fuel can be three to four times higher than those belonging to SC and ST families. A key factor relates to the places of residence of each of the above groups. In rural areas in particular the socially marginalised are forced to live in localities that suffer from forbidding topography and poor transport infrastructure. LPG cylinders are unwieldy containers requiring pedal-powered or motorised transport and, notwithstanding government subsidies, the location factor adds another layer of discrimination when it comes to energy access.
Among the poor — whether urban or rural — women and young girls shoulder the greatest burden of diseases connected to extended exposure to the pollution that results from solid and biomass fuel use. While the responsibility for food preparation is given over to women, the power to make decisions about what kind of fuel to use is usually in the hands of men. Given gender norms, women’s health does not usually figure as a priority when it comes to deciding on the distribution of the household budget. Add to this the fact that daughters of the household join their mothers in sharing kitchen responsibilities from a young age and you have a lifetime of exposure to particulates and other forms of pollution in extremely confined spaces.
In addition to reducing the burden of disease, women’s access to LPG is also linked to another well-being effect. Studies suggest that the time that is saved — no gathering of firewood and faster cooking periods — releases them from the enforced drudgery of household work, allowing for leisure activities. Not only are women able to devote more time to activities that improve health outcomes but also utilise it for activities that generate income. This, in turn, secures a measure of personal autonomy that is denied by unpaid household work. Control over time is a crucial measure of the capacity to control and fashion one’s life chances. There is evidence that the red cylinder has been an important contributor to this aspect of women’s lives.
India is heavily reliant on imports to meet domestic LPG requirements and the current shortage has had significant effects on commercial activities, such as restaurants and hotels having to curtail operating hours. However, a more significant crisis relates to the welfare effects on the poor. Popular culture portrayals of the LPG cylinder as harbinger of personal and collective well-being are not far off the mark: The transition from the wood-burning chulha to the bright blue flame of the LPG stove is also a transition to better life chances.
The writer is distinguished research professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London
India is heavily reliant on imports to meet domestic LPG requirements and the current shortage has had significant effects on commercial activities, such as restaurants and hotels having to curtail operating hours. (PTI Photo) 
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