Your book is partly based on your research with Janpahal. What were your research questions? When, where, and with whom did you do your fieldwork?
To be more precise, it is not based on Janpahal’s survey but is informed by it. I started working on the book in June 2024, which meant I began understanding the landscape of the gig economy and talking to workers. This led me to their most vocal union leader, Sheikh Salauddin, who lives in Hyderabad, where I live. He pointed me to Janpahal, a labor rights NGO in Delhi. Dharmendra Kumar, who runs it, was asked to lead a survey of gig workers and write a report. When we designed the research, we realized it was going to be massive, but it was only after receiving responses that we realized it had become India’s largest gig worker survey, covering 5200 people across 32 cities and different regions! In addition, over 50 personal interviews were conducted to understand the stories behind the numbers.
The survey was called Adhikar, an acronym for “Respect and integrity of gig workers; humanity and trust in service” as it presents location-based platform workers’ perceptions and opinions of their jobs along the lines of respect, integrity, humanity and trust. Our research questions were: Do platform workers feel they are respected by the company and society for the work they do? Do platform workers believe the company is dealing with them with honesty and fairness with respect to compensation, fines, and payment transparency? Is the platform treating its employees with humanity, paying attention to working conditions, working hours per day, possibility of error, etc.? Is there a partnership of trust between the platform and the activist as reflected in conflict resolution, levels of monitoring, and exchange of information?
The significance of this survey was that till then other surveys were area specific or city specific or focused mainly on some factual aspects like income earned or hours worked. But no one had peeled away the layers of gig work to understand the lived reality of a gig worker on a day-to-day basis. The questionnaire was administered face to face by Janpahal people in different cities. Conducting this survey brought me into contact with workers and union leaders in different cities and thus gave me inside information about their lives and challenges, some of which made it into the book.
What made you expand the scope of your research outside India? How did you interview respondents from Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka?
At first, I only wanted to write about gig workers in India. Not even the customer or the seller. Then as I wrote, I realized that activists don’t work in a vacuum. They exist because there is a demand for doorstep delivery of food/groceries. I felt it was important to understand that aspect. Who are these customers powering the online economy? What is their motivation behind not leaving the house to buy goods and ordering fried food at midnight? This is how customers came. And then it became necessary to add sellers, including small retailers on e-commerce platforms and restaurants selling on food delivery apps.
Speaking of geography, as a development sector researcher I have conducted studies for international organizations that consider South Asia as a holistic region. So, I was familiar with picking up that lens. Then out of curiosity I started reading what was happening in the digital economy in neighboring countries and it was quite fascinating. Although the size of the market using apps is very small, there was a lot of dynamism and innovation in this sector.
For example, there are many food delivery apps in Nepal. A new one comes out every few months. There is an app in Pakistan that offers discounts on apps called GoLootLo. An interesting app for the sewing needs of women in Bangladesh. For both of these countries, I conducted interviews through others and some I conducted on Zoom. I visited Sri Lanka and Nepal. Through local researchers and translators, I found some amazing stories from workers and consumers.
I’m so glad I expanded geography because much of what is happening near us is familiar and yet a little foreign, which makes it very interesting. I’ve been told by some readers that the best stories are stories from other countries. It is important to understand that technology is changing the way we buy, eat, work or travel for all humans, so national boundaries are really irrelevant. This is a moment when all of humanity is deeply influenced by technology.
Many industries employ gig workers. Which areas did you choose to focus on and why?
The International Labor Organization (ILO) classifies gig work into two categories. In situ gig workers are those who work from home as freelancers for online platforms like Upwork, doing graphic design, translation, etc. These are white collar jobs done on laptops. Others, technically called “location-based gig workers,” are people seen on the street, traveling from one customer location to another. The main sectors in this category are parcel delivery (Amazon, Flipkart, Porter); Food delivery (Swiggy, Zomato), instant commerce (Zepto, BlinkIt, Instamart) and transportation (Uber, Rapido, Ola). My initial curiosity about the gig economy was sparked by the gathering of a large number of delivery workers at the main entrance of my building society during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I started investigating his life.
What surprised you when you analyzed your data? How did the data challenge your assumptions?
I have done work studies on gender and transportation in the past. My PhD thesis at the University of Grenoble was about urban women’s mobility. I have contributed to a World Bank study on this topic. So, I can tell you from the heart what policies are needed to make cities safer and more accessible for women. But for this the drivers are being discussed OTP please! Online buyers, sellers and gig workers in South Asia Showed me a whole different side to it. Many drivers feel unsafe when intoxicated women come into their cabs at night and misbehave or refuse to pay after the ride. There are horror stories of girls demanding that the driver hand over all his cash if he doesn’t want to be booked for harassment! In these cases class matters more than gender. There are many such counter-intuitive examples in the book.
How are gig workers organizing themselves to demand better working conditions and pay?
In my book, each chapter is an emotion. There are nine emotions and one of them is courage. It includes stories of gig workers in different parts of the country who have formed groups to protest against unfair treatment and how their local leaders are helping them organize themselves. Most interestingly, their most powerful tool is technology, which includes WhatsApp, Facebook and other apps. It’s quite ironic that they are using technology to beat technology, as I point out in the book.
Sheikh Salahuddin in Hyderabad and Ashish Arora in Jaipur have been at the forefront of these mobilisations. I am in some of the WhatsApp groups of these activists and it is both heartbreaking and heartening to see some of their efforts. You know some will be wiped out immediately, while others, like the New Year’s Eve protests in which nearly two lakh employees participated, will leave a dent.
What are the barriers to union formation and collective bargaining?
Gig workers work around 12-14 hours a day, day in and day out, to actually make orders. It is difficult for them to leave their day jobs and join a protest. Platforms know this, so they offer hard-to-resist incentives on strike day. Workers are tempted to continue working rather than give up a day’s income to protest. Some workers in Jaipur told me that there have been cases when striking workers were later blocked from logging into the platform,
In terms of labor laws, what steps are being taken by governments to support gig workers?
The draft Labor Code rules 2025-2026 in India aim to formalize protection for informal, gig and platform workers through the expansion of Provident Fund (PF) and Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) for gig/platform workers. A welfare fund fee of 1% to 2% of the transaction amount is collected from aggregators for the welfare board. The new labor code states that gig and platform workers, like other informal workers, are entitled to minimum wages, travel allowance, health check-ups, etc. This is great but it is not yet clear how this will be implemented, given that workers log in to multiple platforms simultaneously. Which platform will be responsible for extending these benefits? How much will the workers get as minimum wage? Platform work is very different from other informal work such as street vendors or construction workers. It includes a technical interface, which is useful because all kinds of data exists about the worker, but it is owned by the technical platform. As things stand, the platform is under no obligation to share that data. Any agency implementing welfare measures for gig and platform workers needs to consider these aspects in depth.
Rajasthan was the first state to enact a gig workers welfare law in 2023. Then, in 2025, Karnataka passed the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act. It is a comprehensive law that includes creation of a tripartite board, social security, grievance redressal and algorithmic transparency. Jharkhand has also passed almost a similar law. Next is Telangana. The law is a much needed step but the devil is in implementation.
It is not that all the employees are unhappy. Many people are grateful to have this opportunity to earn a living, especially those who have lost their jobs during the pandemic. Platform work pays higher than the market wage rate for similar informal work. However there are two issues. First, the balance of power in the equation is disproportionately tilted toward the platform and away from the worker. This needs to be fixed and hopefully the various recently proposed laws will help to do so. Second, a program is, by definition, a temporary thing. A permanent job is a paradox, and a lot of people are doing permanent jobs. This is the part that is most worrying. We are dangerously close to becoming a nation of delivery people. Of course, this is not a solution to the technology platform problem.
How is your research being used by people advocating for gig workers’ rights?
Many reviewers and readers have praised the book’s unwavering focus on the human aspect of the digital economy, which we only hear about in the context of its scale, valuation, and all that impressive technology. But the book pulls back the curtain and reminds us that the last leg of this digital glitz is still run by human labour. This is the first book to bring those stories to light and when the book is showcased at various platforms activists feel seen. However, for wider reach among the workers, I am looking forward to publishing it in local languages, especially Hindi.
Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist, teacher, artist and literary critic. She has contributed to various anthologies including 101 Indian Children’s Books We Love (2013), Borderlines: Volume 1 (2015), Clear Hold Build (2019), Fearless Love (2019), and Bent Book (2020).
