India has No Choice but to embrace kyūshū in a Takyoku Era: ISAIL.IN President

India confronts an unforgiving reality: traditional non-alignment offers no sanctuary in today's takyoku (multipolar) technology landscape. The TACO effect (Trump Always Chickens Out) is real, and we have already seen that policy-based non-alignment offers no basis for New Delhi to "remain aloof".

Instead, it must master the art of kyūshū—the strategic absorption and integration of divergent technological approaches, regulatory frameworks, and innovation ecosystems.

India's demographic dividend, digital infrastructure, and democratic institutions position it uniquely to chart this course—but only if policymakers abandon the luxury of indecision and embrace the complexity of strategic technological absorption.

Since this is my Presidential Statement for the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law, I will keep my position clear and simple with actionable recommendations on behalf of the ISAIL.IN Secretariat and the AIStandard.io Alliance.

Japan and the European Union might pursue autonomous foreign policies, including in tech, which is what India should have done at the first place.

It's 2025. PM Modi visits Japan while Japan's lead trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa cancels meeting with the Trump administration on tariffs. Why? Here's what The Japan Times reports:

"Japanese officials are unhappy that a U.S. presidential order would include plans for Japan to increase purchases of American rice and a reduction of tariffs on agricultural products, the report said Friday. Japan objects to the order that would be sent to U.S. government agencies as some points have not been resolved, Nikkei said, citing unidentified Japanese officials."

In short, the US Government tried putting terms which have not been resolved, which is literally obliterating the Japanese Government's consent and trust to some extent. Anyways, in trade negotiations - such tactics only reflect upon how one side behaves.

It sounds unbelievable but this only shows how the Japan-United States ties have been ruined largely by the US Government. Here are some simple instances:

• Japan scrapped annual security talks in July 2025 after the Trump administration demanded Japan increase defense spending to 3.5% of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3%. The high-level "2+2" security meeting was cancelled as a result. 

• Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Japanese imports, effective August 1, 2025. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called this a battle for our national interests and vowed to articulate their needs clearly and firmly, even to their ally.

• A major rift emerged over the interpretation of Japan's $550 billion investment commitment. Trump stated that the US would have "the liberty to utilise the funds as it sees fit," claiming it was America's money to "invest as we please". However, Ishiba insisted the process would be led by Japanese companies with Japanese government support.

• In July 2025, Prime Minister Ishiba publicly stated that Japan must reduce its dependency on the US for security, food, and energy.

As this article is published, you would have noticed that PM Modi had a huge visit to Tianjin, China for the bilateral talks with the Communist Party of China and Xi Jinping, apart from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meet. While most "analysts" and self-assumed experts in geopolitics assume that this meeting with China shows that India has compromised to Chinese interests due to Trump's actions and un-diplomatic behaviour, the picture is actually more nuanced than anything.

• Nothing huge has been accepted by New Delhi. Like Ukraine's President adding distorted points in his official statement on India to tell something Russia "appropriate" which the Indian side never mentioned, the Chinese Foreign Minister's statement when he had met Indian EAM Jaishankar around "Taiwan" wasn't mentioned in the Indian side's statement either.

• The concept of "sensitivity" that has been agreed upon by the Indian and Chinese delegations shows that the normalisation of India-China ties is not significant, because despite easing out investment restrictions and changing visa policies, it is a long road to establish any form of trust with China, yet.

• The public perception against China has not changed and would not change for a long time due to the China-Pakistan relationship in defence, strategic and other domains, which many Indian audiences know.

This shows that while AI influencers and geopolitical pundits give you an illusion that the world moves fast, it really doesn't. Even the tiniest of disagreements sometimes are solvable, while the biggest points of consensus can be thrown away in a minute.

Now, considering this Japan-China comparison - in a Takyoku era, i.e., a multipolar world, India has no choice but to master the art of kyūshū - which essentially means that we have to quickly rethink how we diversify our technology industry policies.

Boldly stating, India's Technology Policy's at least 50% Aspect cannot rely on the trajectory of India-US Relations

For nearlty 20+ years, the India-US relationship has blossomed pretty well, and technology has been a cut-out element of this relationship. I am not going to make puffed statements that India and the United States are "destined" to be together in the tech policy journey, but yes - there has largely been a form of convergence across multiple administrations in the US and multiple parliamentary Indian governments, around tech policy.

But guess what? We talk about Atmanirbhar Bharat and we cannot rethink independent tech industry and policy measures without involving companies like OpenAI and Microsoft? The Nayara-Microsoft incident became possible to milk PR for some tech policy "insiders", but the reality is that we have over-relied on all kinds of American stakeholders on so many components of tech policy.

• Our tech policy research? Most of it is a copy of what Europeans and Americans publish, and there is a dedicated circuit of technology policy researchers at Delhi, and Bengaluru's top think tanks who are backed by American non-state think tank circuit. India's top law school collaborates with Omidyar Network for research work on tech and telecom law, which is publicly known. What has the ICRIER-OpenAI roundtable on AI and economics even achieved? Nobody asks these questions.

• We cannot even have consistent case laws on intermediaries, because the legislative understanding of the Information Technology Act, 2000 around intermediaries and platforms has been confusing forever, so much so that in an advisory issued before the Pahalgam Terror Attack, specific provisions of the Act's Ethics Code were cited, which already have been declared inoperative by Indian courts. So are the bureaucrats clueless, or our system doesn't know what it legislates?

• The Economic Survey of India of 2024-25 had a dedicated chapter on AI and the Future of Work, and they cite the quote of Sam Altman to describe that the future of work implications are real? Are we blind enough to accept whatever is said in public by a CEO who cannot be trusted on matters of AI ethics, work practices and R&D?

Even till date - most of our technology policy collaborations are US-driven. The only diverse platforms where some common sense and fresh ideas can be expected are the India-EU, India-Japan, India-Australia, India-Africa, India-Singapore, India-ASEAN and India-Eastern Europe bilateral and plurilateral fronts.

Here are some facts as they are:

The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) has become India's primary tech policy framework. Key evidence:

• 100% of major tech initiatives now require US coordination: TRUST program, INDUS Innovation, AI Infrastructure Roadmap

• Joint policy development: US-India roadmaps dictate India's AI infrastructure, semiconductor strategy, and quantum computing priorities

• Forcing function effect: iCET deliverables serve as "forcing functions within India for deregulation"

The February 2025 Joint Leaders' Statement reveals policy subordination: India commits to "U.S.-origin AI infrastructure," "verified technology vendors," and "addressing protections and controls" as determined by Washington.

Research institutions increasingly echo Washington priorities:

• US-funded policy research dominates critical technology discourse

• Question framing: Senior Congressional staffers now ask "what more India can do for the iCET"

• Analytical bias: Think tanks frame India's tech development through the lens of "Can India help the U.S. win its race against China?"

I totally agree with Kunal Singh, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Belfer Center, when he said this on X.

Has anyone asked these incompetent think tanks how would MeiTY navigate through such challenges? Or would only the Ministries of Commerce and External Affairs would handle the matter since MeiTY and the India AI Mission have no clue what they are doing anyways? What happened to that cross-border data regulation consultation that was held under the leadership of MEA's NEST Division lead? Paper pushing doesn't take India anywhere if India-US relations are the only deciding trajectory for India's tech policy future.

What's India's diversification strategy to engage with EU, ASEAN-based countries and even LatAm countries? Think tank policy papers on some abstract ideas, only to butter the careers of Delhi-based researchers?

Anyways, here are our recommendations.

Recommendations

All technology policy encompasses both industry and governance (core policy) components. The India AI Mission and MeiTY must fundamentally rethink their role from paternal supporters to strategic enablers of India's AI landscape. Offering GPUs within specific segments provides limited value without indigenous chip manufacturing capabilities.

Government's R&D Role

Even in research and development, the government should transition from paternal supporter to active sponsor—prioritizing job creation and opportunities for India's young talent by fostering a science-based economy. Additionally, avoid reducing the India AI Mission primarily to language models. This mission should serve all AI innovations, not exclusively LLMs. The ministry's reactive stance to DeepSeek and excessive openness to OpenAI represents a strategic misstep.

Market Diversification Strategy

Technology industry and policy priorities can always be diversified. To enable this diversification, move beyond monolithic approaches to understanding digital technology markets and systematically address the industrial and talent capabilities across different countries.

Industry Engagement Beyond Corporate Giants

Recent positive developments in the Computer-Related Inventions guidelines (version 2.0) acknowledged ISAIL.IN's recommendations. Building on this precedent, expand industry sensitivity by understanding India's ecosystem beyond India Inc. companies and major corporate ventures.

Startup Ecosystem Understanding

The Government of India has yet to grasp the fundamental challenges facing tech startups. While many SaaS companies face overhyping and long-term sustainability issues regarding their investment trajectories—as Sridhar Vembu, Chief Scientist at Zoho previously highlighted—comprehensive understanding remains lacking.

Institutional Coordination

All key institutions—MeiTY, NIC, PSA, and ANRF—must coordinate effectively to achieve policy objectives.

AI Democratization Misconceptions

• The most significant strategic error by the Government of India lies in assuming that democratising artificial intelligence like water to "enhance" Indian Digital Public Infrastructure delivery represents a non-negotiable priority.

• The IndiaAI competency report of March 2025 failed because it lacked any red-teaming strategy. Unlike the trusted ecosystem of RBI, NPCI, and fintech companies, Indians will not readily trust GenAI involvement with DPI systems.

Learning from Sector Failures

• The e-commerce and logistics sectors provide instructive examples. After replacing human agents with AI workflows and conversational bots, these sectors now face reputational damage and trust issues due to GenAI system problems.

• GST professionals cannot handle GenAI systems' "by-design" inefficiencies, demonstrating that unreliable large language models cannot be deployed irresponsibly.

Transparency and Vendor Selection

Vendor selection processes remain opaque. This lack of transparency must be addressed immediately.

AI Literacy as Fundamental Right

• Make AI literacy a legal right. However, avoid teaching legislators and judges to use AI tools without first understanding data outflow mechanisms and how large language models manipulate human consent through anthropomorphising tendencies.

• No government mandate should desperately assume that large language models will dominate the industry. Instead, focus on dataset enhancement initiatives and ensure stakeholders understand that LLMs are prediction machines. Citizens have every right to know how their data is used and what responses they receive.

Technical Limitations Recognition

Prompt engineering cannot serve as a reliable method for understanding AI tool reactions and responses. Acknowledge these fundamental limitations in policy design and implementation.

Conclusion

Perhaps most critically, India has systematically undermined its ability to extract concessions from major powers. The country has over 3 million Indian-origin scientists and engineers working abroad—a brain drain that simultaneously weakens domestic capabilities while strengthening competitors. Meanwhile, strategic partnerships have devolved into asymmetric relationships where India provides market access and political alignment while receiving promises of technology transfer that materialize as export-controlled hardware with string-attached usage rights.

India's research and development expenditure has actually declined from 0.83% of GDP in 2009-10 to 0.64% in 2020-21—a trajectory that places it among the world's lowest spenders, with only Mexico performing worse. This isn't mere underinvestment; it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what kyūshū demands in a competitive multipolar landscape.

True absorption requires indigenous capability to process, adapt, and improve upon external technologies. Instead, India has created a dependency structure where 66% of patents filed are by non-residents—primarily Americans (32.7%), Japanese (13.1%), and Chinese (10.5%). This isn't kyūshū; it's intellectual colonization with administrative overhead.

The takyoku era demands more than diplomatic balancing acts and rhetorical commitments to technological sovereignty. It requires the institutional capacity to rapidly absorb, adapt, and improve upon diverse technological approaches while maintaining strategic autonomy. Current structures—whether bureaucratic processes, private sector incentives, or research infrastructure—remain inadequate for this challenge.

India has no choice but to embrace kyūshū in a takyoku era.

But genuine absorption requires more than policy declarations and hardware procurement. It demands fundamental restructuring of how the nation organizes technological development, allocates resources, and measures success. The alternative isn't merely reduced global influence—it's technological dependency disguised as strategic partnership, where the appearance of kyūshū masks the reality of systematic subordination to more capable powers.

The clock isn't just ticking on technological competition; it's measuring the window for structural reform that could enable authentic strategic absorption rather than managed dependency.