Every political age invents the object it fears. Not because historical enemies disappear, but because power periodically needs to create new bogeymen. Dangers shapeshift till a new politics of danger emerges. Novelty is crucial for this exercise.
In the past few days, two incidents have occurred that, prima facie, appear disconnected.
In India, Telegram found itself at the center of renewed scrutiny amid concerns surrounding the integrity of competitive examinations. For millions of students, the platform is not merely a messaging application; it is where notes are exchanged, doubts are resolved, coaching material circulates and study communities are built. In moments of governance failure, the platform has suddenly been recast as a threat. The logic is not unfamiliar. A major examination faces allegations of leaks, manipulation or malpractice. Public anger grows. Confidence in institutions begins to erode. Faced with pressure to act, authorities focus on the medium through which information travelled rather than the conditions that made the leaks possible in the first place. The platform becomes the story. The deeper questions on failures of administration, involvement of the regulating bodies and breakdown of systemic accountability recede into the background.
A similar drama unfolded at the G7 summit. Donald Trump has often displayed skepticism towards multilateral institutions. He left 66 international treaties and institutions in one fell swoop in January 2026. In June 2026, the Trump administration defended Elon Musk’s Grok AI for its usefulness in guiding missiles to Iran, after Musk faced an environmental lawsuit regarding Grok’s data centers. Given this context, Trump joining the G7 Summit for discussions on increasing restrictions on AI is, to say the least, curious. At the G7, AI was presented as a source of immense promise but also immense danger, and subsequently, the need for greater regulation of AI was discussed. But AI didn’t suddenly become more powerful. What changed was its political meaning: leaders framed AI as dangerous because its dissemination threatens existing hierarchies and control. The reframing of AI as dangerous appears to have two drivers: the visible limits of conventional coercive power (USA, Israel) in geopolitical flashpoints, as was visible in the recent Iran war, and the ever-present shadow of Chinese influence. When AI becomes a pillar of strategic advantage, economically, militarily, and politically, the natural reaction among Western capitals is to define it in terms of control, containment, and standards that maintain the favourable balance of power.
What exactly does a messaging app used by students possibly have in common with debates over controlling frontier artificial intelligence? The answer lies in how power responds to a threatened status quo. Technologies are rarely treated as dangerous simply because they exist. They become dangerous when they expose institutional weaknesses, redistribute power or threaten established forms of control. Technology has a peculiar habit of becoming dangerous only after institutions fail. Not because it has suddenly acquired new powers, but because it offers governments something every political crisis demands: a visible enemy. Platforms can be banned, algorithms can be regulated, summits can be convened. Institutional decay and growing geopolitical fragmentation, by contrast, are far less photogenic.
The Telegram controversy cannot be understood in isolation from the political economy of examination leaks. Paper leaks in India are rarely the work of a handful of students sharing PDFs online. They emerge from organised networks involving coaching centers, middlemen, government officials, printing facilities and local political patronage. Investigations across states have repeatedly revealed criminal syndicates operating through relationships with bureaucratic and political actors. Whether or not direct political culpability is established in every case, the persistence of these networks points to structural institutional failures rather than technological ones. Against this backdrop, focusing public attention on Telegram performs an important political function. It shifts the conversation from the organised infrastructure that produces examination fraud to the digital platform through which leaked material may circulate. The platform becomes visible; the network that sustains the leak remains invisible. Action against Telegram is immediate, highly publicized and easily communicable. Dismantling entrenched patronage networks is politically difficult, administratively costly and often implicates actors much closer to the state itself.
Similarly, artificial intelligence becomes a security issue when it threatens to alter military balances, economic hierarchies and technological leadership. This helps explain an apparent contradiction at the heart of contemporary AI politics. The same governments that celebrate AI’s transformative potential increasingly describe it in the language of national security. The same states racing to deploy advanced AI systems are simultaneously warning the world about their risks. Trump’s participation in the G7 is nothing but performative multilateralism. He’s softening his image by showing up, while maintaining the upper hand inside the room and strong-arming allies to root out Chinese competition. The AI security talk isn’t about new capabilities; it’s about shielding American technological primacy and using the G7 as a tool to contain China. At this rate, we can expect an AI cold war and a far more segregated neo-nationalist future of global tech. Perhaps this is what the G7 debate obscures. AI is not merely another strategic technology to be secured against rivals. It contains the possibility of becoming a democratic commons, one that is capable of diffusing knowledge, productivity and innovation across borders. The struggle over AI, then, is not simply about safety. It is about whether this new infrastructure will remain globally shared or become enclosed within competing technological blocs.
There is a grave danger in viewing every technological challenge primarily through the lens of security. When examination scandals become debates about platforms, and when AI becomes chiefly a tool of geopolitical rivalry, attention shifts away from the social relationships that technologies both reflect and reshape. A more productive approach would begin from a simpler premise: technology is not merely a tool, a commodity or a weapon. It is social relations. It reflects existing distributions of power while simultaneously creating new ones. The question, therefore, is not whether Telegram or artificial intelligence is inherently good or bad. The question is who benefits, who is excluded, who governs and who bears the costs.
The Telegram controversy and the G7’s AI anxieties belong to different worlds. Yet both reveal a common temptation: to treat technology as the problem because confronting deeper political failures or motivations is far more difficult. The result is political theatrics, not governance. The ritual and spectacle of action replace the labour of governance. The structures that created the exam leaks, or the ones that seek overarching control over new innovations like AI, remain intact.
The challenge before us is not simply to regulate technology. It is to build institutions capable of governing the social and political conflicts that technology makes impossible to ignore.
Amrisha Rai holds a master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and has a keen interest in reading and writing about social issues.