BehanVox: Who Benefits From India’s New Labour Codes?
This week in BehanVox: Assam passes Bill against polygamy, the barely functional Delhi Commission for Women, and more
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Last week, the government declared that it will absorb 29 different labour laws within a unified framework of four codes – Code of Wages, Code on Social Security and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. The argument was that the old labour laws were too scattered, complicated and outdated, particularly because they did not recognise new forms of labour and the rights of those employed there, especially gig work and platform work. This had meant that states had started initiating their own laws to step up.
On the face of it, the overhaul seems like what the doctor ordered. At BehanBox, we have been reporting extensively on the extreme vulnerability of contract workers (here, here and here), frontline health workers (here, here and here) and the uncertainty and opacity that dogs the working life of the entirely new stream of gig, platform and data workers (here, here and here). But do the new labour codes cover these issues effectively?
This reaction holds a simple answer: Employers, companies and business houses have welcomed it with uniform enthusiasm. Trade unions, labour lawyers and activists have called the codes a “sweeping and aggressive abrogation of workers’ hard-won rights and entitlements since [India’s] independence”.
“The codes are totally meant for the business houses; to make it easier for them to invest and operate their businesses. It is not in the interest of the workers because it takes away the rights, which were enshrined under various laws, which have been in existence for several decades, and some of them came into being after many protests and strikes by workers,” counters labour lawyer Gayatri Singh in an interview to The Indian Express.
She argues that much of the so-called reforms do not amount to much. For instance, the codes for the very first time recognise the idea of “gig workers” and “platform workers”. But they still stop short of defining them as “employees” which means that aggregators will not be liable for standard contributions like PF, instead a welfare fund is to be created as a levy on the aggregator’s annual turnover. This, argues The Wire creates a welfare model based on cess rather than rights.
Talking Point
Big Shift: The newly introduced labour codes will permit women to be employed in night shifts across sectors with their consent. But a growing number of states have brought in this provision this year — Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra among them. But the new codes, unions say, dilute inspection mechanisms, raise work-hour ceilings, and rely on employer self-reporting—and this might weaken the protections women workers have.
Out Of Commission: The Delhi Commission for Women has been effectively non-functional since last year, reports the Times of India, when its last chairperson Swati Mahiwal left to join Rajya Sabha and 223 contractual staffers were fired. The helpdesk, crisis intervention cell and rape crisis cell – which drew mostly women from disadvantaged homes – are barely functional.
‘Protecting Women’: The Assam assembly passed this week the Prohibition of Polygamy Bill, 2025, making polygamy a criminal offence. The punishment for polygamy in the state will be seven years’ imprisonment and 10 for those concealing information about an existing marriage. The bill excludes the areas of the state governed by autonomous tribal councils recognised under Article 342 and where polygamy is not uncommon. The next step, if brought back to power again in the state, says chief minister Himanta Sarma, will be to follow in the footsteps of Uttarakhand and bring the Uniform Civil Code. But as legal scholar Surbhi Karwa had argued in this BehanBox interview, the feminist movement had realised that uniformity may not essentially lead to equality.
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The Birth Keepers: There is such a thing as Free Birth Society, run by two influencers who advocate for ‘wild births’ or birthing without medical assistance. A year-long investigation by Lucy Osborne and Sirin Kale in the Guardian reveals horrific tales of how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of such ‘wild births’.
The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction: ‘Before Asimov, there was Rokeya’. This is the strap of this gorgeously written and produced piece by Gautam Bhatia in the new Alter magazine, which should tell you everything about the history of science fiction in India. And did we say how gorgeous it is?
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