India Activates Four-Code Labour Overhaul, Repealing 29 Legacy Acts

India has not attempted a labour rewrite of this scale since the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, which itself followed Britain’s 1946 Industrial Relations Act; both sought post-war order but ossified over decades. The 2025 codification mirrors the 1991 economic-liberalisation moment—shrinking paperwork, courting investment, and betting that easier hiring and firing will lure capital—yet it occurs in a vastly different world of platform gigs and AI-driven supply chains. By folding gig workers and night-shift women into statutory protection, New Delhi nods to the informal economy that swelled from 81 % of employment in 2000 to roughly 90 % today, but critics note that enforcement still lies with state labour inspectors whose capacity has hardly grown since the 1970s. On a 100-year arc, the move tests whether emerging economies can leapfrog the Fordist factory model straight to flexible, digitally tracked work without repeating the West’s century-long union-versus-capital battles—and whether social protection can keep pace when employment relationships fragment. The codes’ real legacy will hinge less on parliamentary text than on how India’s 28 states, often with opposing parties, write and police the subordinate rules in the 2030s.