COLONISED BY CODE: THE RETURN OF EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF DATA

AUTHOR – SHAMBHUNATH YADIYAPUR, STUDENT AT GUJARAT NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, SILVASSA CAMPUS

BEST CITATION – SHAMBHUNATH YADIYAPUR, COLONISED BY CODE: THE RETURN OF EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF DATA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (10) OF 2025, PG. 513-521, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344

Abstract

This paper endeavours to examine the tryst of technology and capitalism in relation to the world order in the age of information. The unique characteristics harboured by colonialism are manifestly visible in today’s digital ascendance. Any effective protest against the internet-linked technologies encroaching upon private lives seems improbable unless the subjects are disconnected from the very hive of the instruments they seek to resist. The inquiry explores the state of the present world order where the transfer of resources of the digital age and that of material gain is not on equitable footing amongst ‘former’ colonisers and the liberated colonies. The researcher asserts that a capitalist investment is driven by imperatives that benefit just the stakeholders and their recognised partners; any incidental gain experienced by an alien is only peripheral. Data today is a user product destined to generate profit, for whosoever manages to capture and exploit it. While liberated states practice democracy, the standards remain prescribed by the colonisers. Thus, an introspection of the neutrality of the modern tools deployed to pursue such political ends is indispensable. A specific lifestyle has been engineered to streamline the process of data extraction for the purpose of profit generation.  This study argues that colonialism never ended but only transitioned from the imperialistic form into the digital. The non-state actors, aided by their sovereign powers, facilitate the commodification and transaction of foreign citizens’ data profiles. This practice helps such bodies manipulate unfavourable regimes. Once a favourable regime is planted, the infrastructure is designed to support capitalist interests i.e., to coerce beneficial data relations between the investors and the invested through systematic integration. The research method employed is doctrinal. The liberated democracies, such as India, have only recently begun to recognise the enforced character of the incumbent world order polarity. The challenge of countering the resultant conventions while functioning within the said system, however, remains formidable. This paper concerns methods of data extraction and exploitation; hence it offers a critical reflection essential to understanding the power structures of the contemporary era.

Keywords: Data, Capitalism, Autonomy, Democracy, Colonialism.