The struggle of the migrant gig workers cannot be comprehended unless one analyses the problem as being one where the worker, as Marx (1844) had argued, has oneself become the product and is being forced to sell one’s human essence for sustenance. Migrant gig workers represent the most destitute conditions imaginable for gig workers in India and as such demand a more introspective and detailed analysis than others. This means that one needs to move towards a reconfiguration of one’s ideas surrounding concepts such as class and exploitation and move towards more inclusive ones, that enable the analysis of issues concerning regional disparities, caste, race, gender and other such factors as parts of the totality created by capitalism. However, in doing so, it needs to be emphasised that the exploitation faced by migrant gig workers reflects not only a crisis of the working class, but rather a crisis of humanity itself within the consumerist urban spaces that capitalism has developed, in India and across the globe.
Acknowledgements The author thanks Marcelle Dawson, Simon Barber, Annabel Cooper, Kevin Anderson, Peter Hudis, Sandra Rein and Ursula Huws for their support. The author would also like to thank Dipsita Dhar and Rikta Krishnaswamy for their encouragement and inputs regarding the chapter.
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