Table of Contents
Highlights
- Open source strengthens India’s digital sovereignty by reducing dependence on foreign software, enabling transparency, and allowing full control over infrastructure and data.
- India is progressing but still faces challenges, including hardware reliance, skill gaps, policy enforcement issues, and open-source sustainability.
- To achieve true digital independence, India must invest in local tech ecosystems, build skilled talent, support open-source communities, and create strong policies around data and infrastructure.
In today’s digital climate, technology isn’t only about devices and applications. It’s also about power, control, and sovereignty.
For a country like India that uses digital infrastructure at an unprecedented scale, the ability to determine how that technology operates, and who owns that technology, is vital.
That is the point of digital sovereignty. One of the most significant means to achieve that is through open-source software.
What is Digital Sovereignty?
Digital sovereignty means control over your own digital infrastructure, data, software, and networks. It means ensuring that critical systems are not controlled by foreign companies or governments.
Experts recognize that India has made some advancements in establishing a large-scale digital ecosystem for its citizens, but it still has significant weaknesses because of dependency on technology.
For instance, when Indian enterprises rely on foreign software or foreign cloud services or foreign operating systems, it constitutes risk whenever that provider changes its rules, goes out of business, or is disrupted. This poses risks to national security, business continuity, and citizen rights.
What is Open Source?
When we talk about open source, we’re talking about software that includes access to the source code. They can see, modify, and redistribute the source code to anyone.
Unlike a closed system or a proprietary solution, open source provides transparency and allows flexibility, and eliminates the potential of being locked into a vendor’s terms. Put simply, with open source, you can see how it works, and if you want, you can change it.
In India, open source is increasingly viewed as an important method for building important digital infrastructure that is Indian controlled, and not someone else’s control.
Why Open Source is Important for India’s Sovereignty
There are a few main reasons why open source is so important for India:
1. Eliminating Vendor Lock-in
If a closed or proprietary software solution is used, the country or organization now depends on the vendor for updates, fixes, pricing, and data control. For an open source solution, India can now be less dependent on a vendor and can control the systems it builds and uses.
2. Cost and Innovation
Open source can reduce licensing and vendor costs. It also allows local developers to innovate, build in Indian languages with a unique Indian sensibility, and build localized solutions that work with India’s infrastructure. This goes a long way to establishing wide and low-cost scaling of digital services.
3. Openness and Trust
When software is developed in a way that is auditable, the user can establish trust. This is the case for digital services in health, education, banking or governance where privacy and integrity are critical. Open source creates the path to trust.
4. Control of Data and Infrastructure
Digital sovereignty is not only about software it is also where data is stored and processed and who makes the decisions. Open source software allows India to develop indigenous solutions that can be governed under India and be managed in India.
Where is India Currently
India has taken significant steps. The government has announced proposed laws, policies and infrastructure to provide data and digital service control. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is one example of democratizing privacy and establishing this variation in circumstances for context and specific use for individuals.
At the same time, open source efforts are gaining traction. For example, a major company’s desired initiative in India launched a “sovereign cloud” approach with open source, to help enable local enterprises to keep their data at or under their control.
While steps have been taken, there are still some challenges, including the fact that India imports much of the semiconductors used in its technology ecosystem, uses globally dominant operating systems and is reliant on foreign cloud platforms, diminishing its digital sovereignty.
Challenges and Risks in the Future
Building open source and capabilities for digital sovereignty is not simple. Some of the principal obstacles are:
Skill gaps
India needs more engineers, software developers, and cybersecurity experts who have an understanding of open source, governance, and infrastructure.
Hardware reliance
Even when it is open source, software often runs on foreign hardware or chips, which do not support full sovereignty.
Policy and enforcement
Simply passing laws and policies that are aligned with international legal requirements is one thing. Making them work is another thing altogether. In India, compliance and reliance on systems across extensive scale is still a work in progress.
Open source sustainability
Open source products require depth of community support, budgets and sustainability. If products have little to no active community, it introduces a level of risk.
Openness and control
Too much control may reduce levels of innovation or flexibility, while too much openness could lessen levels of security. India will need to strike the right balance.
What They Should Be Doing
If India would like to use open source capabilities for digital sovereignty, it should consider doing the following things.
Firstly, India should encourage or support local hardware and software solutions so there are less reliance. Creation of community support and funds around open-source products that fall under digital sovereignty is another important aspect.
Next, establishment of policies that creates standards around sovereignty in data localization, the viability of hardware and codifies sovereignty of software developers.
Further, India needs to build and bolster more trained people in the digital skills required such as software development, open source coding ethics, and security.
Lastly, creation of sustainqble systems, made up to the standard, is equally crucial.
Why This is Important for Us
For most of us this importance still feels slightly abstract. But it touches our everyday lives by framing who we trust with our data, (or what apps we use), how many layers our online services are shielded with, and whenever we experience an internet interruption as the result of some foreign government.
If India’s diverse digital ecosystems have strong open source foundations, citizens of India will benefit from cheaper, more reliable services across banking, health, education and government. It may also mean augmented control over personal data, a decreased risk of service interruption from some foreign entity’s actions, and services more uniquely designed to the needs to the people (based on language, culture, accessibility).
Looking Forward
We can expect open source to increasingly shape India’s digital story over the next few years. As global tensions continue to rise and data regulation and technological competition heighten, countries are looking inward for sovereignty. With its large pool of tech talent and evolving startup ecosystem, India could seize an opportunity to lead in this space.
Open source provides a pathway forward: transparent, customizable, low-cost. However, it will require direction, investment, and a dedicated approach. If India takes the right approach, digital sovereignty won’t just be a catchphrase; it’ll be a competitive advantage.
Conclusion
To summarize the entire argument, open source plays a central role in India’s ambition to achieve digital sovereignty. By using software which has open code plus, is modifiable and transparent, India can start to build more reliable systems. This will create a domino effect to reduce India’s dependence on foreign tech and eventually help to become independent. But this will only work if we also build local skills, hardware, policy frameworks and open ecosystems.
For India to be truly sovereign in its digital future, open source is no longer simply an option — it is an integral component.
