RECLAIMING INDIA'S DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY: A CALL FOR CLOUD INDEPENDENCE

India stands at a critical crossroads. As foreign technology giants continue to expand their dominance over our digital infrastructure, we risk ushering in a new era of "digital colonialism"—a 21st-century version of the East India Company saga.

- ABHISHEK BHATT

What began centuries ago with trade agreements eventually led to full-scale colonial rule. Today, the digital economy risks a similar fate, with Indian data being extracted, repurposed by foreign AI companies, and sold back to us in the form of intelligence services. The parallel is not merely rhetorical—it is a real and urgent threat.

AI platforms like OpenAI and xAI's Grok are already under scrutiny—not just from the Indian government and businesses, but globally. Their operations raise valid concerns around the control, security, and economic ownership of data. What's more troubling is exposure to extraterritorial laws such as the CLOUD Act and FISA Section 702, which can mandate data disclosure to foreign authorities. The architecture of global surveillance under frameworks like the Five Eyes alliance—a U.S.-led intelligence network that now sweeps vast swaths of the world's data, often including information on non-citizens and foreign institutions. While the stated intent is national security, the implications for privacy, civil liberties, and digital sovereignty are profound.

India's growing dependence on foreign hyperscalers—large, foreign-owned cloud service providers—is exacerbated by the vacuum in enforceable data sovereignty protections. While the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act addresses privacy and security, it falls short on data attainability, portability, and user control—key pillars of true sovereignty.

This is not just a policy gap; it is a national vulnerability.