29 - 06 - 2026

Rahul Gandhi’s AI Fears, Adani’s Multibillion Answer

There is an old saying that when all else fails, politicians discover a new fear. Rahul Gandhi’s latest discovery is artificial intelligence.

Rahul Gandhi echoes a narrative that AI is less a technological revolution than a conspiracy waiting to happen. Foreign companies will own our data.

Indian engineers will lose their jobs. India’s digital future will be sold to the highest bidder. One almost expects him to warn that robots will soon begin campaigning for the BJP.And then reality did what it often does. It interrupted politics.

The Adani Group announced a ₹9 lakh crore investment in AI data centres across India. There is something refreshing about a cheque that large. It has a habit of ending arguments that speeches cannot. While television studios debated hypothetical disasters and Rahul Gandhi warned of looming dangers, India’s corporate sector was placing one of the biggest bets yet on the country’s AI future.

Politics thrives on apprehension. Business thrives on opportunity. One counts applause. The other counts risk. One asks, “What if everything goes wrong?” The other asks, “What if everything goes right?” Countries that aspire to lead cannot afford to become prisoners of permanent pessimism.

Artificial intelligence is not built with slogans. It runs on data centres, electricity, semiconductor chips, fibre-optic cables and armies of engineers. It requires capital that most governments can only dream of spending. Every nation that hopes to dominate AI is investing heavily in precisely these things. India has finally begun doing the same.

To be fair, Rahul Gandhi is right to ask questions about data privacy, cybersecurity and technological dependence. Democracies need sceptics.

But scepticism loses its value when every opportunity is presented as a looming catastrophe. The purpose of opposition is to improve policy, not to convince a nation that it is destined to fail.

There is another curious feature of Indian politics. We applaud entrepreneurs when they create jobs but become suspicious the moment they become successful.

We demand world-class infrastructure but object when someone builds it. We celebrate India’s ambitions abroad while doubting them at home.

One need not be an admirer of Gautam Adani to recognise the significance of a ₹9 lakh crore commitment to AI infrastructure. Industrialists do not write cheques of that size merely to dominate headlines.

They invest because they believe tomorrow will reward today’s risks. Sometimes they are wrong. But they cannot afford the luxury of endless speeches.

Pessimism for wisdom?

History has little patience for those who mistake pessimism for wisdom. Every technological revolution has had its critics. Railways had them. Electricity had them. The internet had them. AI is no different.

Rahul Gandhi has chosen to view this revolution through the lens of anxiety. Others have chosen to invest in it. Time, as always, will decide which approach serves India better.

When the history of India’s AI revolution is written, it is unlikely to remember who delivered the loudest warning. It will remember who laid the foundations. Speeches win news cycles. Investments build nations. And that is a lesson worth remembering, for Rahul Gandhi as much as for everyone else.

B D Narayankar