Digital Sovereignty and Data Colonialism: India’s Emerging Foreign Policy Challenge

The digital age, while committing seamless connectivity and innovation, has Incongruously germinating to a new form of global exploitation, which is termed as data colonialism. Where core countries extracting valuable resources from developing nations, alike historical colonial practices. The global data economy, projected to exceed $584 billion by 2032, is Progressively Clustered in the hands of few dominant tech giants situated in Global North. Economically, it leads to outflow of wealth from Global South, hindering local industries development. Politically, dissipates national sovereignty and policy autonomy as foreign entities control key digital systems and data flows. Thus, data localization and digital sovereignty seek to strengthen national authority, but must be balanced with the demands of international interoperability and safeguarding human rights. In the end, combating digital colonialism necessitates a coordinated international effort to create strong governance frameworks, fund regional digital capabilities, and put human dignity and equity ahead of unrestrained data extraction and profit maximization. Against this backdrop, this study is being conducted through qualitative research method, and the research design are descriptive and analytical based on secondary data, this paper aims to explore the tangled linkages between data colonialism and digital sovereignty for India’s foreign policy.