India, Jan. 19 -- On New Year's Eve, a planned strike by platform and gig workers across the country reopened an ongoing debate about the conditions of platform work in India. At the heart of this debate is a very simple issue: What is the correct way of understanding the relationship between online platforms (such as Uber, Ola, Blinkit, Zomato, and so on) and their workers?

The reason why this is important is because labour laws - not just in India, but across the world - are based on a simple premise: The employer and the worker are not equally powerful parties when it comes to setting the terms and conditions of a work relationship. In capitalist societies, there is an inequality between those who own the means of production, and thos...