The humble dabbawala network of Mumbai, a century-old marvel of supply chain reliability operating at near-zero error rates, is now facing an existential crisis. This is not a quaint cultural footnote. It is an intelligence concern.
The model delivering 200,000 lunchboxes daily across a chaotic urban battlespace is a case study in resilient logistics. And UK firms are now dissecting it for lessons. But systemic pressures from gig-economy platforms, rising costs, and demographic shifts among younger workers are eroding this node.
A failure here would remove a critical redundancy in Mumbai’s informal economy and a template for low-tech, high-trust distribution in contested environments. This is a threat vector for urban resilience and a strategic pivot point for adversarial study.
