Performative Sovereignty: Tension between India’s Digital Governance and Accountability

By Harleen Kaur

The pursuit of digital sovereignty is often presented as a way to reclaim control from powerful technology companies. This blog argues that, in India, this pursuit makes accountability more difficult. India's approach to digital sovereignty is not solely concerned with reasserting state authority over technology companies, but also with reconfiguring the relationship between the state and private actors. In this emerging model, the state plays an enabling role by providing funding, digital infrastructure, and access to scale. At the same time, indigenous private technology companies often retain significant operational autonomy and capture much of the resulting value. The blog explores this dynamic across two domains: the increasing reliance on voluntary, industry-led AI governance frameworks in place of binding regulation, and the expanding role of private actors in functions traditionally associated with the state through the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) model. It argues that these developments may blur lines of regulatory responsibility and diffuse accountability across public and private actors, raising questions about how digital sovereignty is being operationalised in practice.

Read the blog here

Workshop report | Provocations on AI Sovereignty: Confronting Complexities & Shaping Future Strategies

By Urvashi Aneja, Harleen Kaur, Shreeja Sen and Anushka Jain

Developed from reflections from the workshop, this report explores what digital sovereignty means, assesses its feasibility, examines who benefits from such an agenda, and unpacks the new policy conundrums it raises.

The concept that every country should develop its own AI capabilities is gathering steam globally. Several countries are investing in specialised computational infrastructure and developing national data sovereignty frameworks to ensure their strategic and economic self-reliance.

Yet, the AI sovereignty discourse obscures the substantive political choices that become necessary once the agenda is translated into concrete policy actions.

We need to ask for whom and from whom sovereignty is to be won—does it pit nation-states against one another, or is it about empowering citizens vis-à-vis powerful technology companies?

Equally, is it about boosting a country’s competitiveness in the global AI race or carving out policy space to pursue goals that might lie outside those pursued in the dominant AI paradigm?

With support from Samagata Foundation, in November 2024, we hosted a workshop to explore the debate around AI sovereignty and its implications for India. Along with 18 of the country’s leading thinkers and practitioners, this workshop created a space for first-principles thinking and forward-looking debate through in-depth discussions.

Read the report here.