Editorial

The operationalily 22 November 2025 marks a watershed: India’s four Labour Codes have finally brought eight million gig and platform workers out of the legal shadows. Delivery riders, cab drivers, and beauty technicians working for Ola, Uber, Swiggy, Zomato, and Urban Company are no longer “partners” in name only; they are workers with statutory rights to social security, accident insurance, health cover, and fair termination. This is, without exaggeration, the most ambitious extension of labour protection since Independence.

Yet every Indian instinctively completes the sentence: “Good law, shame about the implementation.” We have seen this film before. The Building Workers Welfare Cess lies largely unspent. Contract labour boards exist only on letterheads. Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, became a cruel joke. Whenever money is collected in the name of the poor but routed through multiple government layers, a familiar pattern emerges: ghost beneficiaries, inflated bills, diverted funds, and inspectors who earn more from silence than from salaries.

The new gig-worker welfare boards will soon handle thousands of crores contributed by aggregators. Unless those funds are ring-fenced with real-time public dashboards, tripartite oversight, and automatic transfer to beneficiaries, they will vanish into the same black hole that swallowed construction workers’ cess and Beedi Workers’ welfare money.

This is not about distrusting the present government alone; it is about distrusting the entire bureaucratic DNA of India. No political party has clean hands on this count. The danger is compounded because gig workers are scattered, mostly migrant, and lack the collective muscle of traditional trade unions. They are perfect victims: visible on streets, invisible in power corridors.

If the Centre is serious, it must treat these Codes as a prestige project on par with GST or Aadhaar. Publish every rupee collected and spent. Allow workers’ collectives to trigger audits. Impose criminal fiduciary breach for diversion of funds. Make non-registration a non-bailable offence for CEOs, not just a footnote penalty.

The gig economy was built on the myth that flexibility and dignity are opposites. The Codes demolish that myth. Now the government must demolish another, older myth: that in India, laws for the weak are written in sand while laws for the powerful are carved in stone.

Eight million exhausted riders are watching. Deliver for them, or forever be judged as the regime that promised the moon and delivered only a press conference. The law is ready. The question is simple: does India have the honesty left to implement it?

In the sweltering heat of Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on November 20, 2025, Nitish Kumar was sworn in as Bihar’s Chief Minister for a record tenth term—a feat that would be historic if it weren’t so depressingly familiar. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept the assembly polls with 202 seats, but the real spectacle unfolded a day later with the portfolio allocations. Kumar, ever the tactical fox, handed the Home department—his iron-fisted fiefdom for two decades—to BJP deputy Samrat Choudhary, along with other juicy plums like health, roads, and agriculture to his saffron allies. For the first time, the JD(U) strongman skipped “sensitive” roles, signaling either a graceful fade-out or a sly bid to keep his hands clean while the BJP steers the ship. With 26 ministers in tow, this cabinet isn’t just a government; it’s a mirror to Bihar’s rot.

The numbers scream indictment. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 46% of these ministers—12 out of 26—carry criminal baggage, including 38% with serious charges like murder, attempt to murder, and crimes against women. We’re talking about men (and a token few women) who should be in the dock, not the darbar. And the wealth? A staggering 88% are crorepati millionaires, their affidavits bulging with assets from dubious real estate to unexplained cash stashes. In a state where 34% of the population scrapes by below the poverty line, this is less a council of ministers than a club of the criminally affluent. Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist turned agitator, didn’t mince words: “Full of corrupts and criminals—a slap in the face of Bihar’s people.” He’s right; the NDA’s victory was sold on promises of one crore jobs, lakhpati didis, and mega skill centres, yet the cabinet looks like it was picked from a caste calculator, not a competency test.

This isn’t mere optics; it’s a systemic sabotage. Bihar’s governance has long been hostage to criminal-politicians, with the state topping national charts for minister-crooks. The BJP, which rode anti-corruption waves nationally, now co-owns this mess—Choudhary’s elevation to Home Minister, overseeing law and order, is a punchline. Will he prosecute his own ilk? Kumar’s portfolio shuffle might buy him leverage in Delhi, but it cedes control to a partner whose Bihar blueprint prioritizes vendettas over viability. Smaller allies like LJP(RV) and HAM(S) got scraps—minor water resources, SC/ST welfare—ensuring their loyalty without real power.

Bihar deserves better than this parade of the indicted. The NDA’s mandate was for development: seven expressways, metro rails in four cities, a ₹5,000-crore education revamp. Instead, voters get a cabinet that embodies the very “jungle raj” Kumar once railed against. If the Centre truly cares—Modi, Shah, Nadda were all at the swearing-in—demand fast-track trials for these ministers’ cases. Enforce the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling barring convicted netas from office. And for heaven’s sake, prioritize probity over pelf.

This cabinet is Bihar’s latest litmus test: can the NDA deliver governance or just more graft? Eight million Bihari migrants slaving in other states won’t wait forever. Nitish Kumar, the eternal survivor, has built another fragile throne on sand. One wrong flip-flop, and it crumbles—dragging Bihar’s dreams down with it.

• SAS Kirmani