When the intent is right, innovation empowers the less empowered and when the approach is inclusive, technology changes the lives of those on the margins. This belief laid the foundation for Digital India as a mission to democratise access, build an inclusive digital infrastructure, and provide opportunities for all. A decade ago, India embarked on a bold journey into uncharted territory with great conviction. For decades, the ability of Indians to use technology was doubted, and it was further believed that technology would deepen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. This mindset was changed by trusting people’s ability to use technology and by using technology to eliminate the gap.
In 2014, Internet penetration was limited, digital literacy was low, and online access to government services was scarce. Today, from governance to learning and transactions, Digital India is everywhere, linking e-governance with transparency, accountability, and service delivery through digital technology and an interactive service model. India has also emerged as a global advocate of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) as a model for inclusive development.
Bridging the Digital Divide and the Expansion of Digital Infrastructure
The first decade of Digital India has been defined by the task of bridging the digital divide. In 2014, India had around 25 crore Internet connections; as of early 2026, that number has grown over 97 crore connections, with rural Internet users forming nearly half of the total base.
Over 42 lakh kilometres of Optical Fibre Cable (about 11 times the distance between Earth and Moon) now connects even the most remote villages under BharatNet. India’s 5G rollout is among the fastest in the world, with 4.81 lakh 5G base stations installed in just two years of launch. High-speed Internet now reaches urban hubs and forward military posts alike, including Galwan, Siachen, and Ladakh.
India Stack, described as India’s digital backbone, has enabled platforms like Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which now handles more than 100 billion transactions annually. Around half of all real-time digital transactions take place in India. UPI has also expanded internationally through linkages with countries such as Singapore, UAE, France, Srilanka, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, and Qatar.
Through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), over Rs 44 lakh crore have been transferred directly to citizens, cutting out intermediaries and reportedly saving Rs 3.48 lakh crore in leakages. The JAM trinity (Jan Dhan-Adhaar-Mobile) has strengthened targeted welfare delivery.
Schemes like SVAMITVA have issued over 2.4 crore property cards and mapped more than 6.47 lakh villages using drone technology, thereby ending years of land-related uncertainty. These developments show how digital technology has become central to service delivery and how the interactive service model has reduced distance between the state and citizens.
Democratising Opportunity and the Digital Economy
The digital economy is empowering MSMEs and small entrepreneurs in ways that are described as never before. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is presented as a revolutionary platform which opens a new window of opportunities by providing a seamless connection with a huge market of buyers and sellers.
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) enables ordinary people to sell goods and services to all arms of the government and it not only empowers them with a vast market but also saves money for the government. The process of applying for a Mudra loan online, having creditworthiness assessed through an account aggregator framework, receiving the loan and starting a venture, registering on GeM, supplying to schools and hospitals and then scaling up via ONDC illustrates how digital platforms have been integrated into service delivery and economic participation. ONDC has crossed 200 million cumulative transactions, with the last 100 million in just six months. From Banarasi weavers to bamboo artisans in Nagaland, sellers are now reaching customers nationwide, without go-betweens or digital monopolies. GeM has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore gross merchandise value (GMV) in 50 days, with 22 lakh sellers, including more than 1.8 lakh women-led MSMEs, fulfilling orders worth Rs 46,000 crore. These outcomes underline the link between e-governance, transparency in market access, accountability in public procurement and the widening of opportunity through digital technology.
Digital Public Infrastructure and Global Adoption
India’s digital public infrastructure, ranging from Aadhaar, UPI, CoWIN, DigiLocker, FASTag, PM-WANI, and the One Nation One Subscription initiative, is now being studied and adopted globally as a scalable model. CoWIN enabled the world’s largest vaccination drive and issued 220 crore QR-verifiable certificates. DigiLocker, with more than 54 crore users, securely and seamlessly hosts over 775 crore documents. Aadhar coverage exceeds 130 crore residents, enabling authentication across welfare and financial systems.
During its G20 Presidency, India launched the Global DPI Repository and a US$ 25 million Social Impact Fund, helping countries across Africa and South Asia adopt inclusive digital ecosystems. The India Stack model is now seen as an alternative to proprietary digital ecosystems dominated by private global platforms.
These platforms illustrate how digital governance has moved from domestic service to global digital leadership and how standardised system could support transparency and accountability in large-scale public programmes.
Startup Power, Artificial Intelligence, and Aatmanirbhar Bharat
India ranks among the top three startup ecosystems in the world, with over 1.8 lakh recognised start-ups and more than 100 unicorns. This has been described as a tech renaissance. India is doing extremely well in terms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) skill penetration and AI talent concentration among youth. Through the US$ 1.2 billion India AI Mission, access has been enabled to 34,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) at globally unmatched prices of under US$ 1 per GPU hour, making India not just the most affordable Internet economy but also the most affordable computer destination. India has championed ‘humanity-first AI’ and the New Delhi Declaration on AI promotes innovation with responsibility with AI Centres of Excellence being established across the country. Simultaneously, semiconductor manufacturing initiatives and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes aim to strengthen technological self-reliance.
These developments show how digital technology is being linked with self-reliance and service delivery, while raising questions about the balance between efficiency, accountability, and constitutional values.
Digital Constitutionalism and Pressure on Constitutional Principles
Constitutional principles are described as being under threat in a world where data collection, AI, and surveillance technologies take the lead. The episode in which the central government revoked its order to mobile phone manufacturers to install Sanchar Saathi from 2026, following concerns about ambiguous data collection methods, lack of consent surveillance, and unlimited data storage, illustrates how questions about surveillance, state power, and data misuse have become central to the urgent need of what is termed ‘digital constitutionalism’.
Digital constitutionalism signifies the extension of constitutional principles, such as liberty, dignity, equality (including non-arbitrariness), accountability, and the rule of law in the digital space. These principles flow from articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution and have been judicially expanded to include privacy, informational autonomy, and procedural fairness. These values are being threatened as modern governance has become an invisible system, whether it is biometric databases, predictive algorithms automated facial recognition systems, or large-scale metadata analytics.
In the absence of strong constitutional protection within these systems, humans are likely to be exposed to abuse of authority function creep, and disproportionate state intrusion. Present-day life is influenced by digital governance, as automated processes mediate Know Your Customer (KYC) verification, welfare distribution, job applications, healthcare records under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, credit scoring, and even political expression in social media. These technologies tend to operate without any significant revelation or approval from people, and consequently, the concentration of power takes place in the hands of tech designers, law enforcement agencies, data fiduciaries and private companies. This generates an unequal state where citizens are passive data subjects rather than active right-holders, as they are supposed to be in liberal democracies.
Surveillance has ceased to be visible and immediate and is performed with the help of metadata gathering, location tracing, biometric identification, behavioural modelling, predictive analytics, and AI-driven profiling. This silent and constant surveillance could chill free speech, discourage dissent, and disrupt democracies by altering behavioural patterns. People start censoring themselves when they are aware that they are under observation, with self-censorship becoming the new normal. This phenomenon, often described in Constitution jurisprudence as the ‘chilling effect’, directly impacts Article 19 freedoms.
Privacy, Data Protection, and Limits of the Existing Law
The right to privacy is considered to be one of the basic rights in India, affirmed in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) and Anr. vs Union of India and Ors. (2017) by the Supreme Court of India, which recognised privacy as intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, was passed by Parliament to regulate the processing of digital personal data. Although it was supposed to safeguard the data of citizens, the law has significant flaws. It gives broad exemption to the government, is not well overseen by an independent body and has weak remedies for individuals. It places administrative convenience and national security over individual autonomy and dignity, rendering it inadequate as constitutional protection.
Datafication has entered every sector, as banks rely on behavioural analytics, hospitals and insurance agencies depend on digital medical records, and education is delivered through online platforms. Social media platforms constantly profile user through targeted advertising models and algorithmic amplification systems. These developments create efficiency, yet they also reduce personal control over information, and consent has become a routine click-through process rather than a genuine voluntary choice. Purpose limitation is often ignored, and privacy loss is no longer about isolated data breaches but about the gradual erasure of personal control over identity, autonomy, and decision-making.
Surveillance technologies form part of public places, with closed circuit cameras, biometric scanners, automatic number plate recognition systems, and digital identifiers constantly monitoring people. Facial recognition has been prohibited or severely limited in a few cities in the US and parts of Europe because of racial discrimination, surveillance, and false identification. Facial recognition misidentification has led to wrongful arrests abroad and research has found that these systems, at times, adversely work against people of colour, women, and minority groups.
Facial recognition technology is described as potentially leading to discrimination rather than assisting crime prevention, which, like Sanchar Saathi and other digital policing tools, is its stated objective. In India, these technologies are still growing and are being used. There is not comprehensive law on surveillance, a lack of effective judicial control and rare transparency, posing a serious disproportion between authority and responsibility. This creates the risk of transforming a democratic state into a monitoring state.
Algorithms, Accountability, and Natural Justice
Algorithms determine who receives welfare; is profiled by police; has content removed; and who gets a job or a loan application shortlisted. Increasingly, algorithmic systems are also used in tax scrutiny, fraud detection, predictive policing, digital lending, and insurance underwriting. Such systems are commonly known as black boxes because their decision-making functions are obscure. When a benefit is not provided or a person is suspected, there is no explanation and no clear-cut mechanism of appeal. There are real consequences, as algorithmic failures have excluded deserving families from welfare schemes and automated content moderation has silenced legitimate voices. Technology could quietly violate the constitutional principles of equality, reasonableness, proportionality, and natural justice, particularly the principles of audi alteram partem (the right to be heard) and reasoned decision-making. This challenge directly intersects with the promise of e-governance in transparency and accountability.
The legal system in place in India, including the Information Technology Act, 2000, as amended, and emerging digital laws, is mainly aimed at controlling technology and governing platforms. It is not doing enough to defend citizens’ liberties in general and privacy in particular. Few guidelines have been provided by courts, but these are disjointed and provisional. When it comes to high-risk algorithms and surveillance orders, there is no external institution with the ability to audit them or even review them. So, remedies remain slow, expensive, and unreachable, while masses are unaware of dangers. This creates a paradox with the constitutional framework, as rights, freedoms, and state power are now being shaped by the digital system just like government institutions, but are not always subjected to the same level of constitutional discipline, thereby undermining democratic accountability.
Institutional Protection, Transparency, and Digital Literacy
To find an appropriate model of digital constitutionalism, the approach has to be more than merely theoretical and should develop institutional protection. Violations should be inquired into by creating an independent digital rights oversight mechanism, whether through a strengthened Data Protection Board, a statutory digital regulator, or a dedicated digital rights commission, that would ensure accountability. The law should restrict surveillance except in grave situations of national security, determined by necessity and proportionality and pubic transparency reports, and parliamentary scrutiny and judicial warrants must be obligatory. Risky AI devices should be audited and bias-tested on a regular basis. Citizens should be granted the right to explanation and the right to appeal to automated decisions. Tight control of purpose, limited collections, and severe punishment of abuse should be reinforced to ensure better data protection. Digital literacy is described as constitutional empowerment, as individuals should be in a position to criticise, question, challenge, and oppose digital power structures, since rights remain mere theories without knowing.
Digital technologies have become an integral part of citizenship, determining the availability of services, political participation, and even identity verification. With governance increasingly becoming more data-driven, constitutional values should be used as the starting point for this shift, as freedom, equality, and privacy are too precisions to be among the silent victims of efficiency. Digital constitutionalism is presented not just as a change in law but as the defence of the democracy the algorithmic era and as a promise to make sure that technology is a servant of the people and not their silent authoritarian master.
The Road Ahead
The next decade is described as even more transformative, with a movement from digital governance to global digital leadership and from India-first to India-for-the-world. Digital India has not remained a mere government programme and has become a people’s movement, central to building an Aatmanirhbar Bharat and making India a trusted innovation partner to the world. At the same time, the growing shadow over digital constitutionalism shows that efficiency, scale, and speed in service delivery must be balanced with transparency, accountability, due process, and constitutional protection. The experience of expanded digital infrastructure, DBT, Digital Public Infrastructure, startup growth, fintech expansion, and the spread of AI demonstrate how digital technology and the interactive service model can reshape governance, while the experience of surveillance, opaque algorithms, weak remedies, and inadequate legal safeguards show why the extension of constitutional principles into the digital space is essential.
In this context, e-governance is not only about platforms, transactions, and certificates, but also about the evolving relationship between the state and citizens in a data-driven age and the future of transparency, accountability, and service delivery depends on holding these two trajectories together.
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