The rise of algorithmic governmentality creates the ground for people familiar with technological usage to garner an increasing power in the society by controlling governmental mechanism and the state often aided by the private bodies. David Harvey (2005) argues that under neoliberalism, such an enmeshment of the State and the market becomes natural and often necessary with the former aiding the latter; and India was no exception to this general hypothesis (Bhambhri, 2016; Patnaik, 2007). The middle class, amidst these socio-political conditions, becomes one of the greatest assets of the market-based forces because Being middle class in India is related to the ability to consume certain cultural and material commodities in a particular way that exhibits the cultural and social capital that an individual possesses to become a part of ‘the new middleclass modernity in urban India’ (Ganguly-Scrase, 2022, p. 98). For the middle class, the experience that the platforms provide is an important part of their urban lifestyles, as a middle-class IT worker from Bengaluru states:
These platforms have made life so much easier for many like me. Threefour years ago, it was unthinkable that you could get something within ten fifteen minutes, but today it is so easy. I click and it is there. It is almost like magic. I feel like a king, sometimes.
5 MIGRANT GIG WORKERS OF INDIA’S CONSUMERIST CITIES
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<sup>16</sup> See Hayward, T. (2019). “Dark kitchens” spell trouble for the restaurant trade. Financial Times, March 29, https://www.ft.com/content/755ddc1c-50bc-11e9-8f44-fe4 a86c48b33 [Accessed 04.07.2024].