This paper examines India's contribution to world cinema across eleven decades — from Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra (1913) through the streaming and AI era of 2026 — and argues that the country's cinematic standing, its formidable technical infrastructure as a primary VFX and post-production center for Hollywood, its unparalleled linguistic diversity, and its demonstrated record at the Academy Awards together constitute both a claim to cultural leadership and a mandate for AI governance architecture that the world's major forums have not yet fully recognized. The paper traces the trajectory of Indian cinema through six major epochs; examines how the Reliance Jio data revolution of 2016 structurally transformed Indian film's production and audience ecosystems; analyzes AI's impact on production, dubbing, archival preservation, and deepfake vulnerability — situating these within the February 2026 Seedance 2.0 crisis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' landmark 2025 ruling on AI-assisted films; documents India's record at the Academy Awards as evidence of accepted global parity; argues that India's backend role in Hollywood's visual effects pipeline must be converted into authorial and governance primacy; advances Kerala's digital re-release model as a national template for archive-as-asset-class thinking; and evaluates Prime Minister Modi's personal engagement with the AI industry as the foundation for India's emergence as a global AI governance architect. The paper is a companion study to Upadhyay and Krishnakumar (2026), which examines Hollywood's century of reactive AI governance and the specific transnational dimensions of India's VFX relationship with the American industry.