Nations must control data to tell their stories their way

It all begins with a simple question: who gets to decide how a country’s stories, culture, and information are handled online? That is what digital sovereignty is about. It does not require understanding complicated technical jargon. The way things are, with companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple and Netflix operating out of Silicon Valley, all narratives and data are controlled by American entities.

Digital sovereignty means a nation has the infrastructure and power to keep its own data home, manage its own digital affairs, and ensure what its citizens sees online is not controlled by distant companies and foreign governments. It means that people in a country can preserve their own languages, traditions, and values on their terms, rather than have them reshaped by someone far away.

Consider Indonesia. Its oldest telecom company is Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison with CEO Vikram Sinha at the helm. Sinha describes himself a “Jamshedpur Boy”. When he first encountered the idea of digital sovereignty, Sinha couldn’t fully comprehend what it meant. He says it took months to understand the depth of this concept and then to convince his top executives that data—everything from personal information to cultural content—is more than a tool for profit. It is a resource as fundamental as oil, or fertile farmland, but even more intimate because it forms the building blocks of identity and history. Sinha now leads the conversation in Indonesia, reminding the country that its future security and cultural richness depend on ensuring that important information remains under its own guardianship.

This is not a debate focused on elite policy circles. Imagine if all the stories, music, films, and family photographs that define a nation’s heritage could be shaped by outsiders. Imagine if what people watch, read, and learn online could be altered or filtered by massive tech companies on another continent. When countries do not have digital sovereignty, they risk losing control over how their own people learn about their past and discover new ideas. By securing digital sovereignty, a nation ensures that it alone decides how to present its heroes and traditions. It ensures that its children are not forced to inherit a version of the world rewritten elsewhere.

This is why the growing partnership between Indonesia and India matters so much right now. There is talk that Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto may be chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations. Such invitations usually have deeper meaning than ceremony alone. India has been on this path of digital sovereignty for a while, insisting that its digital frameworks must respect local needs and languages. Indonesia has recently begun its own journey in this direction.

Clearly, there is an understanding on both sides that the world’s biggest technology companies will not simply hand over control over how information flows. Nations will have to build rules, set boundaries, and collaborate to ensure that, as technology advances, it benefits their own people first.

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Sinha’s story puts a human face on this challenge. When he joined Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, he was tasked with revitalizing a bleeding telecom company. Over time, he realized that the future was not just about offering better voice or faster internet, but also about ensuring those networks reflect Indonesian stories. It was about making sure data that fuels the country’s growth stays close to home. By doing so, he hopes Indonesia can chart its own path rather than rely entirely on decision-makers who might never set foot on Indonesian soil, speak an Indonesian language, or understand Indonesian customs.

In a world where so much of life has moved online, ignoring the question of who owns and controls data is like leaving your front door unlocked and hoping no one walks in.

It is no longer enough to own the land beneath one’s feet. Nations must also own the cloud of information that swirls overhead. They must shape the future by defining how technology is used, stored, and shared from a position of strength and confidence. Because in the great digital landscape, those who hold the keys to their data will get to write their own stories.