India can unlock its potential by using data nationalism, localisation, and sovereignty effectively

The first and the foremost requirement in this context is to bring these issues on the national agenda as data sovereignty has an impact on every citizen of India.

(Sanghnomics is a weekly column that tracks down and demystifies the economic world view of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and organisations inspired by its ideology.)

"Data is not only the new oil but it is also the new gold." Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in an event at Houston in the United States in September 2023.  And one couldn’t agree more!

It is imperative that India must protect its data sovereignty. Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and a few other organisations inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have taken up the issue of ‘Data nationalism’ in recent times. Way back in 2019, the SJM had passed a resolution that talked about Data decolonisation and protection of Data in India.

Following this resolution, the co-convenor of the SJM Ashwani Mahajan also wrote a letter to the PM. The SJM emphasised on the importance of data localisation, data nationalism and data sovereignty in this letter.

Data Localisation 

The act of storing data on any device that is physically located inside the boundaries of the nation where the data is generated is known as “data localisation.”  India continues to struggle with the issue of Data Localisation as the majority of this data generated within the country is kept on a cloud outside of India. The Modi government has tried to regulate and settle this issue and certain milestones have been achieved but there is a long way to go. Data Localisation gains importance in light of the fact that Indian industry treats it as a strategic resource and there is a huge potential for monetising this resource. In addition to the revenue potential, data localisation is also important from the perspective of national security. If the crucial and sensitive data is not stored within the boundaries of the country, then the government and the security apparatus would have very limited control over it and the data accessed by any third party carries a huge risk of causing harm to India’s national security and her national interests.

According to a 2021 research paper by Carnegie India (How Would Data Localisation Benefit India? By Anirudh Burman and Upasana Sharma): 'Indian law enforcement agencies face major constraints in getting timely access to data. This is usually because the data that law enforcement personnel is seeking is collected in India and stored in another jurisdiction, leading to a conflict of legal systems. Currently, governments go through legal instruments known as mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) to access this data. However, this process is considered cumbersome, as on average it takes ten months for governments to gain data access in this way.'

Data Sovereignty

The idea that data collected or stored in a particular country should be subject to the laws of that location is known as ‘data sovereignty’. Right from the credit card information that a customer is entering into an e-commerce website up to posting comments on any social media platforms- all the user data generated within a country should be regulated by the legal framework of that country. The Western world and a number of think tanks working at the behest of western digital behemoths have already started building an anti-India narrative that India is trying to exert influence to create a global governance architecture that suits her needs. This narrative needs to be dealt with as India’s data sovereignty faces stiff challenges which are going to become more serious with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

India’s digital sovereignty vision has three pillars, explained  Arindrajit Basu in a  2021 paper ‘Sovereignty in a ‘Datafied’ World’ published by Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation(ORF), “First, a push to leverage data as a key tool of economic growth and development by asserting regulatory oversight over the practices of multinational private actors; second, a domestic push backed by a global diplomatic gambit to prevent the inequitable construction of digital trade rules; and third, the leveraging of data security in bilateral security disputes. While the policy formulation and implementation of India’s vision is still a work in progress, the desire to shape the global data governance architecture—the governance of data between states, non-state actors, and individuals while managing data flows across territorial borders—and the intent to sustain these rule-making efforts is apparent.”

Data Nationalism

Data nationalism is on rise across the world and has become a new normal and India must adapt to this changing global scenario. The Narendra Modi government has banned a number of Chinese apps that were collecting data and other crucial information from India and taking it to mainland China. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg that we have tackled. A look at the global trends indicates that the line between Data protectionism and Data Nationalism has also blurred.

One of the most prominently cited essays on ‘Data Nationalism’ (Anupam Chander & Uyên P. Lê, Data Nationalism, 64 Emory L. J. 677 (2015), puts it aptly, “Imagine an Internet where data must stop at national borders, examined to see whether it is allowed to leave the country and possibly taxed when it does. While this may sound fanciful, this is precisely the impact of various measures undertaken or planned by many nations to curtail the flow of data outside their borders. Countries around the world are in the process of creating Checkpoint Charlies—not just for highly secret national security data but for ordinary data about citizens.”

That is the situation we all have to deal with. With the advent of AI, this situation is going to further evolve more rapidly and dynamically. India needs to develop a robust response mechanism to deal with these challenges.  In addition to the government, various stakeholders in the society also have an important role to play in this regard. The first and the foremost requirement in this context is to bring these issues on the national agenda as data sovereignty has an impact on every citizen of India in one way or the other and yet we are hardly even aware of it as a society.  To protect India’s data sovereignty, the society and government would have to work together. The sooner we start, the better it would be for our national interest as well as for our individual data protection.

Earlier Sanghnomics columns can be read here.