India’s Innovation Mirage

India’s Innovation Mirage: Substance or Symbolism?

India’s self-congratulatory discourse on innovation, exemplified by its climb to the 38th rank in the Global Innovation Index (GII) by 2025, conceals a troubling dichotomy: a vibrant ecosystem on paper, but hollow outcomes on the ground. The India AI Impact Summit 2026, which displayed allegedly imported technology under indigenous labels, is a stark reminder that India’s innovation is often more performative than transformative. If India aspires to genuine global leadership in innovation, it must confront structural inadequacies in its ecosystem rather than relying on event-driven optics.

The Institutional Landscape: Policies that Overpromise

India’s policy commitments towards indigenisation are undeniably robust: the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) aim for a "Viksit Bharat 2047." Initiatives like Startup India have placed India as the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem. Similarly, Digital India has created pioneering Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) such as UPI and Aadhaar. Yet, these efforts are undermined by glaring systemic flaws.

While institutions like IITs and NITs boast grant success rates of 40-65%, private universities such as LPU and Galgotias demonstrate patent filings that dwarf those of IITs but with a negligible "filing-to-grant" success ratio—sometimes below 3%. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), with its 30% weight on patent filings, encourages quantitative inflation of intellectual property (IP) activity without proportional substantive outcomes. This ranking arbitrage incentivizes filing frivolous patents—a practice that erodes genuine innovation potential.

A Case in Evidence: Weak Commercialisation and Low R&D Investment

India’s R&D expenditure languishes at approximately 0.7% of GDP, a stark contrast to South Korea (4.8%), Israel (5.7%), and the United States (3-4%). This low investment, coupled with limited private sector participation, stifles advancements in deep-tech domains such as AI hardware, biotech, and semiconductors. Even where patents are granted, translated industry applications and revenue streams remain minimal. For instance, the Ministry of Commerce reports that technology licensing revenue in India remains among the lowest globally.

The showcase culture, exemplified by public events like the India AI Impact Summit, substitutes rigorous testing and problem-solving with flashy prototypes. The summit’s controversy over imported technologies highlights the performative narrative of innovation—a "skin" of national pride veiling "hardware" dependency on foreign actors.

Who Loses and Who Wins?

The institutional winners of India’s symbolic innovation are the high-volume universities reaping ranking benefits and attracting more students, while genuine innovators—deep-tech startups, independent researchers—bear the costs of credential inflation. The erosion of trust caused by misrepresentation at international summits damages India’s credibility as a reliable AI collaborator, harming opportunities for venture capital and global alliances. Meanwhile, taxpayers fund ambitious missions like IndiaAI without seeing tangible societal or industrial returns.

The Counter-Narrative: Is Progress Unrealistic?

The strongest counter-argument comes from the defenders of India’s nascent ecosystem. They argue that rapid scalability, even if coupled with imperfections, is critical for building capacity. India, a country late to the global innovation race, requires mass participation before refining quality. In this view, "volume over substance" represents an unavoidable stage of progress.

While this perspective acknowledges systemic flaws, it risks justifying a state of mediocrity as a developmental strategy. Relentlessly boosting patent filings without due diligence may accelerate quantity, but it sabotages credibility—leaving India at risk of becoming a bystander in the global innovation economy.

Lessons from China and South Korea

The Chinese innovation trajectory provides a meaningful juxtaposition. From a "copycat" stigma two decades ago, China has emerged as a global leader in high-speed rail, electric vehicles, and telecommunications. Unlike India’s premature proclamations, China's disciplined iteration—coupled with extensive R&D subsidies—has enabled deep technological breakthroughs. India’s emphasis on events and rankings mirrors China’s early years but lacks sustained follow-through.

South Korea’s Translational Research Centres (TRCs) offer another blueprint. These centres directly link laboratory research with market applications, reducing the "Valley of Death" in innovation. Combined with their R&D-to-GDP ratio of 4.8%, South Korea exemplifies how structural integration can foster technological leadership. India, by comparison, remains a victim of fragmented silos between academia, government policy, and industry-commercial dynamics.

Assessment: From Volume to Value

The path forward requires India to redefine the metrics of innovation. Government reimbursements should shift from incentivizing patent filings to rewarding grants and industry commercialization. NIRF rankings must prioritize "patents granted" and "technology licensing revenue" over raw filings. Institutions with abnormally low filing-to-grant ratios should face rigorous audits to deter non-serious actors exploiting financial discounts.

Private sector incentives, including enhanced R&D credits and seed funding for deep-tech startups, must become policy cornerstones. Without these systemic adjustments, India’s innovation aspirations risk remaining a mirage—visible but intangible.

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