On October 1, 1894, one of the largest hand-made Indian carpets ever made arrived at the railhead in Chippenham, headed for the Waterloo Chamber in Windsor Castle. According to records of the Clerk of Accounts at the time, A.G. Seymour, “It was a sight worth seeing.” It was also most likely made in an Indian prison.

A 16th-century Mughal import to India, opulent and intricate Indo-Persian carpets were once signifiers of wealth and social standing in South Asia. Once upon a time, these carpets adorned royal courts and the homes of wealthy courtiers, merchants, and social elites across the subcontinent. By the mid-19th century, however, increasing colonial influence on textile production across the country contributed to the craft’s decline. To revive the textile tradition and reform prisoners, Sawai Ram Singh II — the Maharaja of Jaipur — introduced carpet weaving in the Jaipur Central Jail, which he founded in 1854. From there, the prison industry of carpet weaving spread to jails in Ajmer and Bikaner, and eventually across British India.

Commonly known as ‘convict’ or ‘prison carpets’, they also became an unlikely form of craft revival following their popularity at colonial exhibitions such as the London Great Exhibition of 1851. By the late 1800s, British administrators reframed prison carpets as a civilising craft, intended as a means for “useful occupation”, “moral reform”, and “rehabilitation” of Indian prisoners.

At the heart of this carceral industry was a narrative sleight of hand. Captive labour was framed as opportunity. Work performed and produced under coercive conditions was described as rehabilitative skill-building. The prison workshop became a model of “productive discipline”, where low-cost labour fed state and commercial interests. Reform and punishment became indistinguishable — an architecture of exploitation disguised as benevolence.

Over a century later, we are now seeing the purveyors of Late Capitalism frame gig work through the same lens. Today’s gig economy sells itself as the ultimate democratisation of work. Drivers, delivery workers, cleaners, and warehouse workers — all, we are told, are empowered micro-entrepreneurs, “free” to choose when, where, and how much they work. Yet behind this thin veneer of “flexibility” lies a system where workers shoulder all risk, earn unpredictable wages, and perform labour governed by coercive rules they cannot negotiate with. Their costs — fuel, data, repairs, and medical bills — are externalised, just as colonial prisons externalised the human cost of the industries they ran.

Of course, this analogy isn’t literal; gig workers are not prisoners per se. But many find themselves in forms of economic captivity: unable to leave because of debt, penalties, opaque incentive structures, and the constant threat of deactivation, which binds them to platforms. Much like jail authorities spoke of “occupation” and “character building”, today’s tech moguls frame economic precarity as entrepreneurship and incentive. What appears to be independence often masks dependence. What seems like flexibility can often translate to burnout. The PR-polished language of empowerment functions as a shield, concealing a system designed to extract maximum productivity from employees with minimal accountability for employers.

There is also a shared history of invisibility. Colonial prison carpets were admired for their beauty, even as the conditions of those who made them were ignored. Similarly, the app-based conveniences we enjoy today often thrives on the unseen labour of workers whose exhaustion rarely fits into celebratory narratives about innovation or efficiency. The platforms’ success stories — of speed, ease, and affordability — are built on the systemic exploitation of labour.

This is not about equating the past and present, but about recognising the continuity of a larger pattern: powerful institutions using language of reform, flexibility, and independence to mask unequal control over workers’ lives. The nationwide gig workers’ protests in late 2025 and early 2026, which led to the Indian Government’s restriction on 10-minute deliveries, are a welcome change. But they also reveal the uphill battle that workers — especially delivery workers — still face under Capitalism as they did under Colonialism.

Here’s more from Homegrown:

The Court Of Carpets: When Wimbledon Met Rural Rajasthan For A Game Of Tennis

‘My Mother’s Carpet’: A Simone Gandhi Photoseries Blends Fashion With Family Legacy

Delhi, Attend An Exhibit Capturing The Inspiring Stories Of Mirzapur’s Carpet Weavers