India’s AI Gambit: Can a “Light-Touch” Approach Forge a Global Blueprint? 

India is pursuing a distinctly “light-touch” approach to AI governance, opting for a flexible framework of voluntary guidelines and self-regulation that leverages existing laws rather than imposing a strict, comprehensive AI Act like the EU or China. This strategy is a calculated bet on fostering rapid innovation and economic growth, capitalizing on the country’s tech-savvy population and high AI adoption rates, but it draws criticism for its lack of legal teeth and for overlooking critical risks like labor displacement, market concentration, and environmental harms, making its success a high-stakes global experiment in balancing technological advancement with societal protection.

India’s AI Gambit: Can a “Light-Touch” Approach Forge a Global Blueprint? 

In the global race to harness and regulate artificial intelligence, the world’s largest democracy is charting a course entirely its own. While the European Union has cemented a comprehensive AI Act, China has erected a wall of state-controlled compliance, and the United States grapples with a patchwork of executive orders and state-level laws, India has thrown down a different gauntlet: trust. 

Unveiled recently, India’s new AI guidelines are not a sledgehammer of legislation but a flexible framework built on a foundation of self-regulation, innovation, and a profound belief in its own demographic destiny. This “light-touch” strategy is a high-stakes experiment, one that could either unleash a torrent of digital innovation, lifting its vast economy, or risk creating a wild west of unaccountable algorithms. At its core, it’s a bet on the spirit of its people over the letter of the law. 

The Delhi Difference: Principles Over Proscriptions 

The most striking feature of India’s approach is what it lacks: a sweeping, new, and legally binding AI law. Instead, the government is advocating for the use of existing statutes—the Information Technology Act and the newly minted Digital Personal Data Protection Act—to manage AI’s emergent risks, from deepfakes to data privacy breaches. 

This stands in stark contrast to the EU’s model, which classifies AI systems by risk level (unacceptable, high, limited, minimal) and imposes strict, mandatory obligations accordingly. For a European startup building a recruitment AI, this means navigating a thicket of pre-market conformity assessments and post-market monitoring. In India, under the new guidelines, the same startup would be encouraged, but not legally forced, to adhere to a set of voluntary principles. 

As articulated by experts like Amal Mohanty, a lead author of the guidelines, the Indian philosophy is “balanced, agile and flexible.” The goal is to avoid creating regulatory roadblocks at what many see as the dial-up internet stage of AI. The fear is that premature, heavy-handed regulation could stifle the very innovation that promises to solve some of India’s most persistent challenges. 

“Think of the EU approach as airport security—meticulous, mandatory, and sometimes painfully slow. India’s approach is more like metro security. It’s efficient, situational, and designed to keep people moving,” explains Yash Shah, CEO of Momentum91, a custom software development firm. “A fintech startup in Bengaluru can deploy an AI underwriting model faster here than it could under the EU’s mandatory risk classification. That speed is a critical competitive advantage.” 

The Engine of Adoption: Why India Believes It Can 

This confidence isn’t baseless. India is already an AI powerhouse in the making. A recent Boston Consulting Group report found that a staggering 92% of Indian employees in customer service, operations, and production are already using AI at work—the highest rate in the Asia-Pacific and far above the global average of 72%. 

This rapid adoption is fueled by a massive, young, and tech-savvy population. From farmers using AI-powered apps to predict crop prices and weather patterns, to doctors in remote villages leveraging diagnostic tools, to the ubiquitous adoption of the UPI payment system, digital literacy is woven into the fabric of daily life for millions. The government itself is a major driver, embedding AI into public service delivery through its Digital India initiative. 

The underlying message from New Delhi is clear: Our people and our market will naturally cultivate responsible AI because the scale of its application demands it. The guidelines focus on foundational principles like “Do No Harm” and content authentication. The latter has already spurred proposed amendments to IT rules, requiring social media platforms to visibly and audibly label AI-generated content, a direct response to the deepfake menace. 

The Critical Counterpoint: The Perils of a Voluntary Framework 

However, for all its promise, this approach has drawn sharp criticism from those who see it as dangerously naive. The most glaring weakness, as pointed out by cybersecurity expert Pawan Duggal, is that “these are only guidelines, which do not have the force of law. There are no legal consequences if stakeholders do not follow the said guidelines.” 

This lack of legal teeth raises fundamental questions. What happens when a self-driving AI prototype from a promising startup causes an accident? Who is liable when a bank’s AI loan-assessment tool systematically denies credit to an entire demographic? In a mandatory regime, the pathways for redress are (theoretically) clear. In a voluntary one, they descend into a legal grey area, potentially leaving citizens vulnerable. 

Urvashi Aneja, founder of the Digital Futures Lab, highlights other blind spots. “This narrow view on AI risks means the guidelines are silent on issues such as labor displacement, psychological and environmental harms.” The environmental cost of training large AI models is substantial, and India’s guidelines make no mention of it. 

Furthermore, Aneja points to the “absence of any discussion on market concentration.” Without proactive regulation, the AI revolution could simply reinforce the dominance of a few large tech firms, both domestic and international, crushing the very startups India hopes to nurture. A voluntary code of conduct is unlikely to prevent the winner-takes-all dynamics inherent in platform technologies. 

The Path Forward: Building the Plane While Flying It 

So, is India’s strategy a masterstroke or a miscalculation? The truth likely lies in the middle. The government’s stance is not one of permanent abdication but of strategic patience. It is, in the words of many observers, “building the plane while flying it.” 

The upcoming global AI summit in Delhi in 2026 will be a crucial milestone. It will be India’s stage to showcase the successes of its model, to learn from international partners, and to potentially begin sketching the outlines of a more formal legal framework once the technology and its impacts are better understood. 

The ultimate insight from India’s AI gambit is this: Regulation is not just a legal document; it is a reflection of a nation’s economic ambition, its social fabric, and its theory of change. The EU, with its mature market and strong consumer protection ethos, prioritizes pre-emptive risk mitigation. China views AI through the lens of state security and social control. 

India, a nation of 1.4 billion people hurtling toward developed status, views AI primarily as an economic liberator. Its “light-touch” approach is a calculated risk that the immense, bottom-up energy of its people—its entrepreneurs, its coders, its farmers, its doctors—will generate more value and solve more problems in an open sandbox than they would in a walled garden. 

The world will be watching. If India succeeds in fostering explosive innovation while managing societal risks through agile guidance rather than rigid law, it won’t just have created a powerful AI economy—it will have authored a compelling new blueprint for the world. But if it fails, the consequences for its citizens and its global standing could be severe. The experiment is now underway.