India’s Parliament Is Missing in AI Decision-Making

India’s AI governance is being shaped almost entirely by the executive. India’s political and legislative institutions must act quickly to restore balance.

Published in Medianama

This column is based on the Foundation's report: Governing AI in India: Why Strategy Must Precede Mission. The complete report is available at: https://tinyurl.com/FutureofIndiaAI

As artificial intelligence reshapes economies, national security, and social systems, democratic institutions around the world are racing to respond. While many governments have begun to take AI seriously, the early response has largely been driven by executive agencies and technocrats. In some established democracies, legislatures are beginning to assert themselves - convening hearings, crafting regulations, and pushing for public accountability. But in many parts of the Global South, parliaments remain at the margins of AI policymaking, with executive agencies and private industry leading the charge. India, the world’s largest democracy and an emerging AI power, exemplifies this pattern with clarity.

Despite AI’s growing impact across sectors and critical infrastructure, India’s Parliament has remained a peripheral actor in shaping the country’s AI trajectory. This is not just a procedural oversight - it reflects a deeper structural imbalance. Without parliamentary engagement, India’s AI future risks becoming technocratic, opaque, and vulnerable to elite capture.

Between June 2019 and April 2025, fewer than one percent of parliamentary questions in either house addressed artificial intelligence (Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha). Even after the global attention brought by tools like ChatGPT in 2022, the increase in engagement has been modest. In the past year, just over a third of members in each house raised even a single AI-related question. These questions revealed both optimism and diffidence - focusing mostly on gains of applications in agriculture, education, and health, with little attention to structural issues such as employment disruption, data governance, or national strategy.

Parliamentary committees have been similarly disengaged. The Standing Committee on Communications and IT has acknowledged regulatory gaps and recommended stronger coordination between central and state governments. But most sectoral committees - on defense, labor, external affairs - have barely addressed AI. Unlike their counterparts in the United States or the United Kingdom, Indian lawmakers do not conduct regular oversight or public deliberations on AI-related issues. No dedicated institutional mechanism exists for sustained engagement.

In this vacuum, India’s AI governance is being shaped almost entirely by the executive. The IndiaAI Mission, launched in March 2024 with a budget of Rs 10,000 crores (USD ~1.25 Billion), was a major administrative milestone. Yet it is not anchored in a publicly debated national strategy, nor does it provide for cross-sectoral coordination or political engagement.

This executive-led model has created a lopsided institutional architecture. Key advisory bodies are dominated by representatives from industry, global tech firms, and a select group of academics. Civil society, labor unions, and elected representatives are either underrepresented or entirely excluded. Even well-intentioned initiatives risk appearing captive to narrow interests.

The consequences are already visible. In matters of strategic autonomy, though AI is already embedded in defense and critical infrastructure, it is not clear if India has a coherent plan for technological sovereignty. The dependence on foreign platforms and proprietary models continues. In the labor market, India’s top three IT firms cut nearly 65,000 jobs in 2024. One tech CEO framed this shift as a chance to “double revenue with half the workforce.” Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund estimates that over a quarter of India’s workforce is exposed to generative AI, with 12 percent at high risk of displacement. Yet there is no national transition plan - or even a sustained public debate - on how to manage this disruption.

Data governance, a foundational issue for equitable AI development, also remains underdeveloped. India lacks a transparent framework to regulate access to public data and prevent monopolization. At the same time, AI pilots are proliferating in welfare programs, policing, and healthcare. In such sensitive domains, technical efficiency cannot substitute for democratic legitimacy. Public trust depends on inclusive, accountable decision-making.

India’s Parliament holds the constitutional responsibility to provide oversight, forge political consensus, and lend legitimacy to national transformations. AI governance, which raises deep structural and ethical questions, demands precisely this kind of leadership. Without legislative engagement, policies risk fragmentation, contestation, and lack of continuity. Internationally, India’s voice in forums such as the Global Partnership on AI will lack weight if it does not reflect a transparent and inclusive domestic governance model.

India’s political and legislative institutions must act quickly to restore balance. AI should become part of mainstream political discourse and feature in party platforms and election manifestos. A standing parliamentary committee on AI and emerging technologies should be established and regular briefings instituted both for capacity building and consensus-building. The Cabinet must be asked to submit a formal national AI strategy for parliamentary debate and approval. Public hearings should bring developers, civil society organizations, labor representatives, and affected communities into the conversation. And a national employment impact study should be urgently commissioned to understand and plan for AI-driven disruption across sectors, regions, and skill levels.

Artificial intelligence will shape India’s future whether or not Parliament chooses to engage. The only question is whether that future will be guided by democratic deliberation - or determined by elite negotiation behind closed doors. In the age of AI, speed matters. But so does legitimacy. The countries that successfully combine technological dynamism with democratic accountability will be more resilient and more credible in the long run.

India has a chance to model that path. As the world’s largest democracy, it must not outsource its technological future to a narrow circle of experts and firms. Its Parliament must lead - not only to improve AI policy, but to safeguard the democratic foundations of its future.

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