On 9 December 2025, Maharashtra lost one of its most persistent labour voices: Baba Adhav, the 95-year-old social activist who spent decades organising head-load workers, rickshaw drivers, waste-pickers and other informal labourers in and around Pune. Trained originally as an Ayurveda doctor, he went on to found collectives like the Hamal Panchayat and Rickshaw Panchayat, and was reportedly jailed over 50 times across his lifetime for leading agitations. As recently as November, he participated in protests outside the Pune Municipal Corporation, and undertook a hunger strike demanding fair elections and protesting alleged misuse of EVMs. His campaigns — from “Ek Gaav, Ek Panvatha” to food-security initiatives like “Kasthachi Bhakar” — consistently linked worker dignity with broader questions of democracy and justice.
The Times of India
For today’s HR and business leaders, many of whom came of age in a world of ESIC numbers and HRMS dashboards, Adhav’s passing is emotionally charged in a different way. His life story is a reminder that vast swathes of the labour that keep our supply chains running — loaders, cleaners, drivers, security staff, housekeeping, street vendors — still live outside the formal protections we analyse in boardrooms. The quiet woman sweeping an office corridor at dawn is closer in experience to Adhav’s hamals than to the employees featured in company townhalls. When informal workers protest or block city roads, corporate India often experiences them as “traffic disruptions,” not as stakeholders. Adhav’s death prompts uncomfortable reflection: how much of our prosperity rests on invisible labour whose voices are only heard when they shout?
From a compliance and leadership standpoint, his legacy intersects sharply with the new labour codes and social-security reforms that claim to extend coverage to unorganised and gig workers. Principal employers will face growing expectations — from regulators, courts, media and investors — to ensure that outsourced, casual and informal workers in their value chains receive at least baseline protections: timely wages, safety gear, grievance channels, and access to welfare schemes. Forward-looking organisations may go further, co-creating panchayat-style forums with informal workers or partnering with NGOs to register them on e-Shram and similar portals. The deeper question is whether HR confines its remit to “on-roll employees” or embraces a wider duty of care to all human beings whose labour sustains the enterprise.
What concrete steps could your organisation take in the next year to improve the lives of contract, outsourced or informal workers linked to your operations?
Should large employers be required to publicly disclose how many people in their value chain lack basic social-security coverage, and what they are doing about it?
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7The Times of India
For today’s HR and business leaders, many of whom came of age in a world of ESIC numbers and HRMS dashboards, Adhav’s passing is emotionally charged in a different way. His life story is a reminder that vast swathes of the labour that keep our supply chains running — loaders, cleaners, drivers, security staff, housekeeping, street vendors — still live outside the formal protections we analyse in boardrooms. The quiet woman sweeping an office corridor at dawn is closer in experience to Adhav’s hamals than to the employees featured in company townhalls. When informal workers protest or block city roads, corporate India often experiences them as “traffic disruptions,” not as stakeholders. Adhav’s death prompts uncomfortable reflection: how much of our prosperity rests on invisible labour whose voices are only heard when they shout?
From a compliance and leadership standpoint, his legacy intersects sharply with the new labour codes and social-security reforms that claim to extend coverage to unorganised and gig workers. Principal employers will face growing expectations — from regulators, courts, media and investors — to ensure that outsourced, casual and informal workers in their value chains receive at least baseline protections: timely wages, safety gear, grievance channels, and access to welfare schemes. Forward-looking organisations may go further, co-creating panchayat-style forums with informal workers or partnering with NGOs to register them on e-Shram and similar portals. The deeper question is whether HR confines its remit to “on-roll employees” or embraces a wider duty of care to all human beings whose labour sustains the enterprise.
What concrete steps could your organisation take in the next year to improve the lives of contract, outsourced or informal workers linked to your operations?
Should large employers be required to publicly disclose how many people in their value chain lack basic social-security coverage, and what they are doing about it?
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A-Formal & informal workers.pdf
Labour laws.ppt
All the labour laws.doc