That's why many employees are also looking for other ways to air their grievances and fight for their rights.

In the southern city of Thiruvananthapuram, 140 Byju's employees who alleged they were being forced to resign went on a protest and also met a Kerala state minister, who announced an investigation into the matter - the state is governed by a coalition of Left parties, which advocates for workers' rights.

Days later, Byju's said it had reversed its decision to shut down operations at Thiruvananthapuram.

Three former employees at an edtech firm told the BBC on condition of anonymity that they were working with a trade union to negotiate severance and notice periods with the company.

Suman Dasmahapatra, president of the Bangalore chapter of the All India IT & ITeS Employees' Union - a registered trade union that has been assisting hundreds of tech employees with labour disputes since 2018 - said that the organisation's membership has been steadily growing.

He concedes that this is still tiny compared with the total number of employees - a majority of IT sector professionals, he says, are still uncomfortable being part of trade unions, either because they fear reprisal from the management, or because "they don't see themselves as 'workers'".

But Mr Dasmahapatra says he is confident that India will see a resurgence in unionisation as the push and pull of global economic forces make the job market more volatile.

Over the past couple of years, US giants such as Amazon, Starbucks and Apple have seen their workers form unions and observers say calls for unionisation are likely to grow louder, and spread across industries.

Prof Sripada, however, disagrees. He says that the proliferation and strengthening of trade unions need not become the norm, as workplaces have already become more conscious about adopting progressive, people-centric policies.

"Unions are a product of bad people management. When employers fail, unions rise. Employers today have the benefit of hindsight so the responsibility lies with them to make people management the centre of business," he says.

"But if organisations continue laying off people in an insensitive and callous manner - as we're seeing happen frequently - the story might be different."