Data as a national asset: What does seeing data in terms of an asset reveal about postcolonial state in India?

Abstract

The Indian state has tried to project an image of data sovereignty, seeing data in terms of a national asset that needs to be protected against the data colonialism of Western Big Tech through various policy documents and rhetoric. In this paper, I have tried to analyse this claim and tried to unravel how it sees data and defines data colonialism, unravelling the role which the Indian private sector plays in supporting that vision. I have then compared it with the work of decolonial scholars who have critically examined the impact of Big Data from the lens of data colonialism to argue how it fails to challenge the epistemological basis of data colonialism even as it projects to fight it.