Last week, while the debate around gig worker rights raged on social media, Atharv Singh, a 4th-year design student, sent a direct message on LinkedIn to Eternal CEO Deepinder Goyal, describing his four months as a picker on Blinkit, managing his own college fees after his father had refused to support his education. Now he was joining Zomato’s design team. “Life really comes in full circle,” he wrote. Goyal replied with a heart emoji. Shared the screenshot on X. By morning, the post had thousands of reactions. It was a beautiful story. But also an anomaly.
While Singh was sharing his story and raking up ‘Likes’, Raju Yadav, 28, who had come to Bengaluru six years ago from Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh where his farmer father couldn’t feed three sons, was living a different reality. An uncle who drove an auto had told him about the various apps. “Good money, flexible hours, be your own boss.” So Yadav bought an Activa on EMI, rented a shared room near Electronic City, and began his rounds. In his first months he earned around Rs 28,000 on an average. That was 2019. The incentive structures were generous.
Today, those numbers feel like a memory from a different economy.
To many like Yadav, the phone is a lifeline. It tells him when to move, where to go, how much he’ll earn. It rations orders like a slot machine. Sometimes three in an hour, sometimes none for two hours in a row. It rates him, warns him, and when he rejected orders one evening because his wife called about their son’s fever, it blocked his ID without explanation.
Take Mohd Khaleel Ahmed, one such delivery worker in Hyderabad. On November 7, 2024, heavy rains had clogged Tolichowki. Ahmed had to return the order to the restaurant and log-off the app. The same day, his ID was blocked. The reason given: “Behavioural issue.” No evidence. No hearing. No appeal. At the company office, he was told there was no longer any relationship to speak of.
Arbitrary Blocking and Judicial Scrutiny
Most workers in his position disappear into the next app, or the next city. Those who cannot afford to fight simply give up. Khaleel, with the backing of Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union, approached the state Labour Ministry, and eventually filed a writ petition in the Telangana High Court, arguing that the platform cannot arbitrarily block the ID of a worker on vague, undisclosed allegations, without prior notice or a chance to respond. Doing so violates the worker’s fundamental rights. Last month, the court issued a notice to the State of Telangana, the Labour Commissioner, and Zomato India Pvt. Ltd. The matter is still pending before the bench.
The strike on New Year’s Eve was meant to force a conversation. It was largely ineffective. Not because workers didn’t want to participate, but because they couldn’t afford to. The incentive system is designed that way. Miss your weekly target by two orders and you lose the bonus on all of them. The game is set up to make protest economically unviable. Yadav didn’t strike. He worked a 14-hour shift, delivered 31 orders, and earned Rs 847 including incentives after deducting fuel.
Atharv Singh’s LinkedIn post ended with a rocket emoji. “Just 1% done,” he wrote. “This Blinkit boy will now deliver design at Zomato.”
For the 99%, delivery is not a launchpad. It is the loop itself: gruelling, precarious. They want their IDs protected, their orders not auto-assigned when they’re dealing with emergencies, a right to be heard before being deactivated. The word ‘partner’ appears everywhere in gig-based apps: partner apps, delivery partners, fleet partners. Not employees. But this distinction is restricted largely to officialese.
Struggle for Social Security
Goldman Sachs estimates India’s quick commerce industry to have about 40-45 million unique monthly transacting users, with about 50% already penetrated on real user TAM (total addressable market), suggesting the need for convenience is here to stay. A 2022 Niti Aayog report estimated 7.7 million gig and platform workers in 2020-21, set to reach 23.5 million by 2029-30. For now, the ones who power India’s great convenience revolution remain, in every practical sense, partners in name only.
The Code on Social Security, 2020, introduced the concept of gig work but still lacks specific rules, leaving these workers in a state of uncertainty. The Supreme Court of India has taken up petitions seeking recognition of gig and platform workers as “workers” under Indian labour law — and not as independent partners — with specific reference to their entitlement to social security benefits. The Court’s eventual ruling could address platform practices like arbitrary deactivation (blocking IDs) and unfair termination, impacting millions of workers’ ability to earn.
Until then…