Author: Pratishruti Bandyopadhyay

Every morning, millions of workers open an app to find their work assignments. The delivery rider in Rajasthan, the Uber driver in Kolkata, the Blinkit courier in Delhi, all work within the same established narrative: the platform is neutral, the algorithm decides the work, and human bias has no place in the system because data is everything. That narrative is misleading, and always has been. In India, where society has long been shaped by entrenched caste, class and gender hierarchies, it is particularly useful for those in power to sustain this illusion of neutrality. The real question is not whether…