India’s Law on AI Needs to Risk Catching a Falling Knife

If you’re a lawyer in 2026, the pace of growth of the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) running headfirst into the limits of the law has likely become an all-consuming, almost existential question in recent months.

To most lawyers I know, it is the defining, unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object conflict of this decade.

In India, it is a pivotal time in this conflict. As with most emerging economies, the window of time for India to force through major legislation on AI in order to meaningful reap its benefits is fast closing.

It’s as good a time as any, then, to take inventory of the vast blank space in India’s law on AI.

Even at a short historical distance, the clarity of India’s early messaging on regulating AI through the law stands out.

By the summer of 2023, the Indian government had already engaged, in some depth, with the regulatory side of the law on AI.

A few core non-negotiables were signalled from this early engagement.

Perhaps the most important of these was that AI regulation through legislation would be tailored around preventing harms to users. Equally, India committed to a strategy of horizontally integrating and updating existing legislation to address concerns falling from AI rather than enacting an AI-specific law. Finally, the government also made clear that the directionality of AI regulation through the law would flow clearly…