Imagine Trump bans India from using Google, ChatGPT: Harsh Goenka warns, Sridhar Vembu suggests national mission

RPG Group Chairman Harsh Goenka expressed concern over a possible ban by President Donald Trump on India's use of US tech platforms, including X, Google, Instagram, and others. Raising an alarm over the potential restriction, he urged people to consider alternatives.

In a post on the social media platform X, Harsh Goenka wrote, “Imagine if Trump bans India from using US tech platforms- no X, Google, Instagram, Facebook or ChatGPT. Frightening, no! Just think about the consequences seriously and what could be Plan B for us.”

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu supported his view and stressed on the importance of addressing deeper tech dependencies through a National Mission for Tech Resilience.

Commenting under Goenka's post, Vembu said,"I agree. And we have a lot more such tech dependency beyond the app level: OS, chips, fabs, .. it goes deeper and deeper. We need a 10 year "National Mission for Tech Resilience". It can be done."

Push for Swadeshi apps

Notably, Vembu's remarks come amid a push for Indian homegrown apps. Recently, Zoho's Arrattai and Zoho Mail, popularly known as an alternative to the messaging platform WhatsApp and Gmail, are gaining popularity in both the App Store and the Play Store in India.

Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and several other ministers opened Zoho Mail accounts in a move to support Indian home-grown brands.

Following the immense popularity of Arattai, Zoho unveiled Vani, a new intelligent visual collaboration platform, on October 1, 2025. The platform reimagines how distributed teams visualise, collaborate, and execute work in one shared space, just like Google Workspace.

Netizens react

Several social media users reacted to Goenka's post, arguing about the possibility of having Indian alternatives to major tech platforms.

One of the users commented, “Waiting for the day when US tech companies start worrying about attracting top talent from India.The day it happens we will have real Independence. As you pointed out this problem cannot be looked at in isolation Supply chain dependencies are higher than automotive and pharma.”

Another user said, “A consortium of private companies can work for this. Help colleges, R&D labs etc. a lot of youth would love to stay close to families and with connectivity help make it a reality.”

A user noted, “I highly doubt this would ever happen, not in the next 10 years. Trump’s a businessman, not a fool to cut off America’s biggest tech market—India. India is the largest or second-largest market for nearly every U.S. tech giant. Tech independence is good, but this reasoning isn’t.”