NEW DELHI – The past week has delivered two stark reminders of a fundamental vulnerability in India’s rapid economic ascent: its dependence on platforms, contracts, and markets controlled by foreign powers. While the country is on a path of significant growth, two seemingly disparate events—a corporate shutdown and a geopolitical tariff—have exposed how few levers of control India truly holds when the world decides to “flip the switch.”
The first incident involved Nayara Energy, one of India’s largest oil companies. On July 18, without warning or legal order from any Indian authority, Microsoft abruptly terminated its services to the company. Nayara Energy, which is partly owned by Russia’s state-owned Rosneft, lost access to its email, Teams, and a vast repository of documents. The shutdown was triggered by a new European Union sanctions list, which Microsoft’s compliance team swiftly acted upon, despite the company having fully paid for its licenses and operating under Indian law. In a panic, Nayara turned to an old Indian tech provider, Rediff, for enterprise email services, demonstrating the importance of homegrown alternatives. The crisis was averted only when Nayara took Microsoft to the Delhi High Court, and the tech giant restored services just before the hearing, a move that highlighted the power dynamic at play.
The second incident, equally impactful, was U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping 25% tariffs on Indian exports, including shrimp, auto parts, and pharmaceutical ingredients. This decision was explicitly linked to India’s oil and defense dealings with Russia. This unilateral move, like Microsoft’s, originated outside of India but had immediate and significant consequences for its economy and supply chains.
These two events, though different in scale and scope, are two sides of the same coin. They underscore a central issue: India’s rising power is being built on a foundation it does not fully control. Whether it’s a multinational corporation enforcing a foreign government’s sanctions or a political leader weaponizing trade policy, the mechanisms of control often lie outside India’s borders.
The illusion of control is strongest when everything works seamlessly, when a thousand digital threads hold together a modern working day. However, when these services fail or are deliberately cut off, the question becomes a painful one: “What else do we have?” As Sanjay Anandaram, a longtime entrepreneur and volunteer at iSPIRT, noted, this isn’t about tech-nationalism; it’s about resilience. He emphasizes that true sovereignty in the 21st century lies not just in laws, but in the institutional mechanisms and enforcement capabilities to protect a nation’s interests. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act is a start, but the incidents of this past week show that India still has a long way to go to build a robust and resilient techno-legal ecosystem that can withstand external pressure.