"As nations across the Global South seek technological autonomy, they confront not just the immense capital requirements of advanced manufacturing â measured in billions of dollars for a single semiconductor fabrication facility â but the persistent hierarchies first established under colonialism and maintained through continuously evolving mechanisms of economic control after independence. Indiaâs experience reveals that successfully navigating global technology markets demands more than capital or skilled labor. It requires fundamentally difÂferent institutional arrangements and social relations than those that emerged from the postcolonial period â arrangements that have yet to be imagined, let alone implemented.
Yet the story need not end here. The moment of decolonization reminds us that other worlds were once possible â that technological development need not inevitably reproduce patterns of dependence. Any renewed struggle for technological sovereignty must begin by reclaiming the revolutionary promise of that first decolonial moment, while appreciating that genuine independence requires not just scientific expertise or state planning, but fundamental social and political transformation. Only by recognizing how the tragedy of failed decolonization gave way to the farce of contemporary technological nationalism can we begin to shape futures that break, at last, from this unrelenting cycle."
https://restofworld.org/2026/dwaipayan-banerjee-india-technology-book
#India #TechSovereignty #DigitalSovereignty #Decolonization #BigTech #Nationalism