Journal Articles

Contesting the Platform: Worker Resistance in India’s Food Delivery

Kumar, Abhinav (2025)
The Academic - International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, pp. 195-209

This paper examines worker resistance movements in India’s food delivery sector, analyzing how gig workers organize and contest platform control through collective action and unionization efforts.

Sweat, Strain, and Survival: The Hidden Cost of The Gig Economy in India

Kumar, Abhinav (2024)
Workers Resistance (AICCTU), Vol 3, No. 6, pp. 17-19

An exploration of the often-invisible costs borne by gig workers in India, including physical strain, economic precarity, and the absence of social protections.

Doctoral Thesis

Digital Platforms and Food Delivery Systems in India: A Study of Zomato Workers in Delhi

Status: Submitted (2025)

Supervisor: Prof. Archana Prasad

Institution: Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Abstract

This doctoral research examines the political economy of food delivery platforms in India, with a specific focus on Zomato workers in Delhi. The study investigates how digital platforms restructure labour processes, the conditions under which gig workers operate, and the forms of resistance that emerge in response to algorithmic management and precarious employment.

Key Themes

  • Platform capitalism and market restructuring
  • Labour process and algorithmic control
  • Worker resistance and collective organization
  • Policy implications for gig economy regulation

Work in Progress

  • Research on community-based digital marketplaces and informal alternatives to platform intermediation
  • Analysis of online fragrance communities in India as case studies of non-extractive digital market systems