Indian Version Should Lead the Tech Industry

Visualizing a future global power India, without the presence of Indian versions in the Tech Industry is neither desirable nor practical from any perspective. India is marching on an upward growth trajectory and after a long time, the country has a unique opportunity of reconstructing the national will and of strengthening its cultural national identity. But at the same time, a diversified and vibrant democracy like India cannot remain ignorant of the factors that have the potential to disrupt its current trajectory. India is surrounded by those regimes that have a history of using propaganda warfare/false narratives as the instruments of their state policy. Apart from that, there are also some billionaires sitting in the western world, which could not still be recovered from their colonial psyche and they tend to see India’s rise on the world stage as their defeat, their temptations to impede India’s growth will only grow in the future. And we cannot underestimate the fact that this time their intentions and attempts have a backup of the BIG tech products too.

There was a time when US policy was to assure the world democracies that “freedom and food can go together” and that assurance gave birth to concepts like ‘food for peace’ and to legislations like ‘public law 480’, today the US policy has been shifted to ‘technology for peace and freedom’ and somewhere the desire of feeding the world with American surplus is still there.

The ever-growing dominance of U.S. based tech products in the Indian market is a matter of concern. The U.S. search giant Google has a market share of 98.82% in India and with 265 million Indian users YouTube (Google-owned) has its largest audience base in India. Other US tech platforms from messaging apps (Whatsapp) to the mobile operating system (Android) to social media brands (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) all have a fast-growing user base in India. At present, Facebook has more users (over 269 million active users) in India than in the USA itself.

In a few years from now, every Indian will have a smartphone in their pocket, according to some recent stats as of December 2019, there are 502.2 million smartphone users in India and by 2022 these numbers will grow to 859 million users. As more and more Indian citizens will explore the world through these apps, the presence of an Indian perspective is crucial.

The nature of recent anti-CAA protests indicates an alarming trend, where a simple and praiseworthy move of the Indian government twisted and manipulated (mainly with the help of digital and social media apps) to an extent which no one imagined before. It is visible that the popular tech products (Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) fuel a different level of confidence in the minds of Islamists and breaking Indian elements. Their hate messages can go viral in seconds (in all possible forms blogs, posts, images, videos, etc.), they can Livestream their propaganda in a few clicks, end to end encryption mechanism of these messaging apps makes it difficult for the security agencies to trace their inter-network communications, their financing is digital and quick, and the power of activating their countrywide networks is in their hands all the time.

It is often said that a country which cannot be challenged economically and militarily, can be defeated in the battlefields of the public opinion. In the absence of Indian versions of tech products, the potential threat of losing this battle is already there, and our further inaction can only defer but not defeat this challenge.

After the abrogation of Article 370, the entire opposition of India made a huge cry on the ‘internet rights’ of the people living in the disputed regions of Kashmir and put a lot of efforts in internationalizing the Indian government’s decision of keeping the internet services shutting down but they deliberately neglected the alarming incidents of the recent past where internet-based apps have played a key role in promoting militants and their ideas. These popular apps give jihadist elements the liberty to remain anonymous and powerful at the same time. Unlike traditional media where promoting terrorist/jihadist sponsored content is an almost impossible task these apps provide means through which they can anytime broadcast their “Call for Jihad” to millions of users, without spending a penny for it.

Today, from some Khalistani groups based in Canada to the ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations) wing of Pakistani military to the banned Islamist organizations to PLA’s cyber propaganda arm, all are leveraging these tech products (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to the fullest- which made their way into the Indian market on the promises of promoting innovation and creativity culture.

In 2018, while addressing Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had said that there is always a possibility of “false narrative derailing the democracy, and today it has expanded many folds because of the technology.” He also said that “there can be any number of dangers to a nation, where the people are used to work on contaminated data,” and “countering the false and malicious propaganda should be taken on a war footing.”

When the Indian government discusses data localization matters with these big tech companies they tout “openness of internet” and “freedom of expression” kind of arguments and argues that data localization will create ‘balkanization of the internet.’ The national security concerns of democratic countries like India sound “over-cynical” to their business strategists but interestingly they demonstrate a more flexible approach toward the terms of Islamic republics. Social media giants like Facebook which advocates for “voice and free expression” openly assures a full support to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for their brutal blasphemy laws but when the security agencies of India seek their cooperation in decrypting terrorist elements’ communications and ask for the data on a potential national security threat, they always play the “privacy” card. On one such hearing on privacy rights (Oct 2019) India’s Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the Supreme Court that “a terrorist cannot claim privacy,” and these Big internet platforms “can’t come into the country and say we will establish a non-decryptable system.”

Against these serious national security challenges, India’s response and potential course of action are not adequate. A few counter twitter trends, a bunch of positive facebook posts/YouTube videos and media people’s occasional endorsements, would not be able to put India in a winning position. We may look winning for a short time but that does not suffice. At the end of the day these tech products belong to the foreign lands, their owners keep not just data servers but also their loyalty and accountability outside the boundaries of India.

Big tech platforms’ stated goal of providing the “power of voice” to millions of people is not above the national security goals of a sovereign nation and can never be used as an excuse for providing platforms/voice to Jihadist elements and virtual caliphate.

Terrorists and anti-national elements’ exploitation of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. is a hugely debated issue and with each passing year, new dimensions are emerging. Serious discussions are going on around the world that how long and up to what level these big tech products can be allowed to challenge the idea of democracy, idea of government and the idea of the nation itself.

Almost all major powers are working proactively on developing the alternate options of these major tech products and the CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act enacted by the US parliament in 2018 has accelerated this urgency to a different level. The CLOUD Act (which amends the Stored Communications Act of 1986) allows federal law enforcement agencies of the USA to compel U.S. based technology companies to provide access to data stored on their servers regardless of whether they are in the U.S. or on foreign soil. The CLOUD Act has the support of major US technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google, etc. And if the foreign law enforcement agency (like that of India) needs access to the electronic content stored in these data servers then they need to undergo an ‘executive agreement’ with the US government. In short, if the government of a country where these BIG tech products are in a dominant position (like in India, where millions of users transact every day) has to access its citizens’ private data stored in these US service providers’ data servers, for any national security-related concern, they will need to make a request to the U.S. government first.

No democratic country can afford to take this matter lightly as the signs of controlling the nerves of sovereign rights of other nations are clearly there.

European politicians have already started talking about protecting their ‘digital sovereignty’ and there are apprehensions in Europe’s political environment about becoming a ‘Digital Colony’ in the hands of a few US tech companies. In a recent move, France government and its army have decided to switch their computers and handheld gadgets from Google to Qwant search engine, a French and German web service, which they believe is crucial for their national security concerns. Russia also has its version of Google called Yandex, whose market share in Russia is 44.38% and according to some recent news reports Russia has begun testing its national internet system that would function as an alternative to the broader web.

Post Independence, India has seen a long era when instead of achieving self-reliance in various sectors it was made dependent. When unwarranted facilities had been provided to foreign industrialists and Indian entrepreneurs had been denied the options of manufacturing many items; when for the sake of the interest of American farmers Indian farmers’ interest were put on stake; when Indian youth were injected with the ‘service industry’ mindset and were trained to become a loyal employee of the foreign firms, and India’s image was reduced to a ‘market’ and service-oriented economy.

The time has changed and India as a country has surpassed that phase of suppression long back, today a New India is emerging, which is more aware of its aspirations and which has a holistic vision for the future. There is no reason why an emerging global power India, with 1.3 billion population, 800 million smart young minds, largest technological pool in the world, having all ingredients of building trusted alliances, whose image is more positive in the developing world than any other global leader, should not start brainstorming in the direction of building an Indian version of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and other BIG tech products.

The monopoly of only a few foreign tech tycoons is neither a good sign for the tech industry nor our national interests. At the same time, India would never opt for a Chinese model of protectionism or Islamic nations’ rigid approach; both do not suit to the basic instincts of India. But a country like India, which has a surplus of young talent, can deal with this challenge in the Indian way.

India has the potential to disrupt the tech industry to make it a level playing field and for that, if needed a joint bloc of like-minded nations like Japan, Israel, Russia, France, Germany, Australia and other friendly and technologically robust countries from the Eurasia group can be made partners too.

Sooner or later, the big tech monopoly in the Tech Industry will certainly be disrupted and it would be good for the health of the global technology industry if a bloc led by India would lead this disruption.