Disconnect Rights
Loved reading about Kerala trying to force the issue of work-life balance when it particularly hard for folks. The right to disconnect is hardly a given or even an option for many. Kerala’s proposed Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, marks a transformative attempt to restore balance in an era when the line between work and personal life has nearly vanished. Spearheaded by Dr. N. Jayaraj, the legislation explicitly acknowledges the toll that digital overconnectivity has taken on employees’ mental well-being, especially in the wake of remote work expansion and the pandemic.
The bill legally empowers private-sector employees to ignore work-related calls, messages, and emails after official hours without fear of demotion, dismissal, or other penalties. It used to be that the the right to disconnect was a prerogative of the chosen few but the rest assumed it did not apply to them. I challenged this assumption fundamentally when I worked in India. Despite being a pretty junior member of the team, I made it a point to disconnect and pushed my team to do so as well. That required that I went to bat for us with our American counterparts. I earned out right to disconnect with concerted effort. Not everyone was as lucky and also my experience is ancient by now, conditions have changed dramatically since that time.
To ensure meaningful enforcement, the bill proposes district-level Private Sector Grievance Redressal Committees chaired by senior labor officers to investigate and resolve complaints. Employers will be obliged to collaborate with staff to define work hour boundaries, specify emergency protocols, and report annually on after-hours communication and employee well-being. The measure situates itself within India’s constitutional commitment to dignity under Article 21 and draws philosophical grounding from the universal “8-8-8” principle, eight hours each for work, rest, and leisure.
Kerala’s initiative emerges not as an isolated policy but as part of a global response to the always-on culture. France, which pioneered the right to disconnect in 2017 through the El Khomri labor reform, provides an instructive precedent. There, all companies with more than fifty employees are required to draft internal charters limiting after-hours emails and digital communications. The result has been tangible improvements in employee satisfaction, reduced burnout, and better productivity, as organizations became more disciplined about respecting off-duty hours. Over time, France’s approach has also catalyzed a culture of conscious digital engagement, prompting similar laws in countries like Spain, Italy, and Belgium.
If Kerala successfully implements its bill in 2026, it could become the first Indian state to codify digital disconnection as a labor right, setting an example for the rest of the country. The law redefines modern professionalism—not as total availability, but as the ability to work effectively while preserving one’s mental and emotional health. In doing so, Kerala aligns itself with a growing international consensus: true progress in the modern workforce lies not in being constantly connected but in knowing the value of when to disconnect.
As I write this, I am thinking of some teams back home in India that will only partly disconnect over this particular holiday weekend and not because they got their turn during Diwali.