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{{Short description|Social classification practiced in India}}
{{About|socio-political stratification in Indian society|socio-religious Hindu stratification|Varna (Hinduism){{!}}''Varna'' (Hinduism)}}
{{Redirect|Castes in India|the book|Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development{{!}}''Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development''}}
{{pp|reason=restore earlier indef semi per [[WP:GS/Caste]] that was removed while upgrading to a short duration full protection, problematic edits since then|small=yes}}
{{Use Indian English|date=September 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
[[File:Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar.jpg|thumb|[[B.R. Ambedkar]] was a social reformer, jurist, and the chief architect of [[Constitution of India|India's Constitution]], widely regarded as one of the most prominent anti-caste voices in modern Indian history. He fought relentlessly for the eradication of the caste system.]]
The '''caste system in India''' is the paradigmatic [[ethnographic]] instance of social classification based on [[caste]]s. It has its origins in [[Outline of ancient India|ancient India]], and was transformed by various ruling elites in [[medieval India|medieval]], early-modern, and modern India, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the [[Mughal Empire]] and the establishment of the [[British Raj]].{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=25–27, 392}}{{sfnp|St. John|2012|p=103}}{{sfnp|Sathaye|2015|p=214}}

Beginning in ancient India, the caste system was originally centered around ''[[Varna (Hinduism)|varna]]'', with ''[[Brahmin|Brahmins]]'' (priests) and, to a lesser extent, [[Kshatriya|''Kshatriyas'']] (rulers and warriors) serving as the elite classes, followed by ''[[Vaishya|Vaishyas]]'' (traders, merchants, and farmers) and finally ''[[Shudra|Shudras]]'' (labourers). Outside of this system are the oppressed, marginalised, and persecuted ''[[Dalit|Dalits]]'' (also known as "[[Untouchability|Untouchables]]") and ''[[Adivasi|Adivasis]]'' (tribals).<ref name=":2" />{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=9}} Over time, the system became increasingly rigid, and the emergence of ''[[Jāti|jati]]'' led to further entrenchment, introducing thousands of new castes and sub-castes.{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} With the arrival of [[Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent|Islamic rule]], [[Caste system among South Asian Muslims|caste-like distinctions]] formulated in certain [[Islam in India|Muslim communities]].{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=392}}{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=26–27|ps=:What happened in the initial phase of this two-stage sequence was the rise of the royal man of prowess. In this period, both kings and the priests and ascetics with whom men of power were able to associate their rule became a growing focus for the affirmation of a martial and regal form of caste ideal. (...) The other key feature of this period was the reshaping of many apparently casteless forms of devotional faith in a direction which further affirmed these differentiations of rank and community.}} The British Raj furthered the system, through [[Census in British India|census classifications]] and preferential treatment to [[Christianity in India|Christians]] and people belonging to certain castes.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=392}} Social unrest during the 1920s led to a change in this policy towards affirmative action.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nehru |first=Jawaharlal |title=The discovery of India |date=2004 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=0-670-05801-7 |location=New Delhi |oclc=57764885}}</ref>{{sfnp|Dirks|2001b|pp=215–229}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Guha |first=Sumit |title=Beyond Caste |publisher=Permanent Black |isbn=978-81-7824-513-3 |pages=38–39 |chapter=The Birth of Caste}}</ref> Today, there are around 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes in India.<ref>{{cite news |date=19 June 2019 |title=What is India's caste system? |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616 |work=BBC News}}</ref>

Caste-based differences have also been practised in other regions and religions in the [[Indian subcontinent]], like [[Buddhism in Nepal|Nepalese Buddhism]],<ref name="LeVine">{{cite book|title=Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9C1iF3MAYgC |first=Sarah|last=LeVine|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-674-02554-7|page=21}}</ref> [[Christianity]], [[Islam]], [[Judaism]] and [[Sikhism]].{{sfnp|Cohen|2001|p=21}} It has been challenged by many reformist Hindu movements,{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|p=3}} [[Buddhism]], Sikhism, Christianity,{{sfnp|Cohen|2001|p=21}} and present-day [[Navayana|Neo Buddhism]].<ref name="Omvedt1">{{cite book|title=Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OvmHAwAAQBAJ |first=Gail|last=Omvedt|publisher=Sage Classics|year=2014|isbn=978-81-321-1028-6|page=252}}</ref> With Indian influences, the caste system is also practiced in [[Bali]].<ref>{{cite book|author= Geoffrey Robinson|title= The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=m3Gfir3Ju70C |year=1995| publisher= Cornell University Press|isbn= 0-8014-8172-4|page=32}}</ref>

After [[Indian Independence Act 1947|achieving independence]] in 1947, India banned discrimination on the basis of caste and enacted many [[affirmative action]] policies for the upliftment of historically  [[Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes|marginalised groups]], as enforced through its constitution.<ref name="What is India's caste system">{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616|title=What is India's caste system?|date=25 February 2016|work=BBC News|access-date=27 May 2017|language=en-GB|quote=Independent India's constitution banned discrimination on the basis of caste and, in an attempt to correct historical injustices and provide a level playing field to the traditionally disadvantaged, the authorities announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes, the lowest in the caste hierarchy, in 1950.}}</ref> However, the system continues to be practiced in India and caste-based discrimination, segregation, violence, and inequality persist.<ref>{{cite news |date=27 June 2022 |last=Taylor |first=Sarah |title='I would tell the other girls at school that I was Brahmin': The struggle to challenge India's caste system |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-28/struggle-to-challenge-indias-caste-system/101185772 |newspaper=ABC News}}</ref>
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==Definitions and concepts==
[[File:Indian Caste System.jpg|thumb|400px|
Representation of the varna system hierarchy, depicting Brahmins (priests) at the highest level and Dalits (historically marginalized as untouchables, considered outside the varna system) at the lowest stratum.]]
{{Discrimination sidebar}}

===''Varna'', ''jāti'', and caste===
====''Varna''====
{{Main|Varna (Hinduism)}}

''[[Varna (Hinduism)|Varna]]'', meaning ''type, order, colour, or class''{{Hairspace}}<ref name="Doniger 1999 186">{{cite book |last=Doniger |first=Wendy |title=Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of world religions |publisher=Merriam-Webster |location=Springfield, MA |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-87779-044-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877790440/page/186 186] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780877790440/page/186 }}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite book |last=Stanton |first=Andrea |title=An Encyclopedia of Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa |publisher=Sage Publications |location=US |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4129-8176-7 |pages=12–13}}</ref> are a framework for grouping people into classes, first used in [[Historical Vedic religion|Vedic Indian society]]. It is referred to frequently in the ancient Indian texts.{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} There are four classes: the [[Brahmin]]s (priestly class), the [[Kshatriya]]s (rulers, administrators and warriors; also called Rajanyas), the [[Vaishya]]s (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and the [[Shudra]]s (labouring classes).{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|pp=19–20}} The ''varna'' categorisation implicitly includes a fifth element, those deemed to be entirely outside its scope, such as [[adivasi|tribal]] people and the [[Dalit|Dalits]] (also known as "[[Untouchability|Untouchables]]").{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=9}}

====''Jati''====
{{Main|Jāti}}

In ancient texts, ''Jati'', meaning ''birth'',{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}} <ref>From Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁-ti-s ~ *ǵn̥h₁-téy-s (“birth, production; kind”). Cognate with Latin gēns, Ancient Greek γένεσις (génesis), Proto-Germanic *kinþiz (whence English kind). By surface analysis, जन् (jan, root) + -ति (-ti).[1]</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=जाति |date=2025-02-07 |work=Wiktionary, the free dictionary |url=https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BF&oldid=83879336 |access-date=2025-05-30 |language=en}}</ref> is mentioned less often and clearly distinguished from ''varna''. There are four ''varnas'' but thousands of ''jatis''.{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}} The ''jatis'' are complex social groups that lack universally applicable definitions or characteristics and have been more flexible and diverse than was previously often assumed.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=9}}

Certain scholars of caste have considered ''jati'' to have its basis in religion, assuming that the sacred elements of life in India envelop the secular aspects; for example, the anthropologist [[Louis Dumont]] described the ritual rankings that exist within the ''jati'' system as being based on the concepts of religious purity and pollution. This view has been disputed by other scholars who believe it to be a secular social phenomenon driven by the necessities of economics, politics, and at times geography.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrington |first=Austin |title=Encyclopedia of social theory |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-415-29046-3 |page=49}}</ref>{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=57–60}}{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|pp=87–88}} Jeaneane Fowler says that although some people consider ''jati'' to be occupational segregation, in reality the ''jati'' framework does not preclude or prevent a member of one caste from working in another occupation.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|p=23}}

A feature of ''jatis'' has been [[endogamy]], in [[Susan Bayly]]'s words, that "both in the past and for many, though not all Indians in more modern times, those born into a given caste would normally expect to find marriage partner" within their ''jati''.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=10}}{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|p=87}}

A 2016 study based on the [[DNA analysis]] of unrelated Indians determined that [[Endogamy|endogamous]] jatis originated during the [[Gupta Empire]].<ref name="indianexpress.com">{{Cite web |date=2016-02-16 |title=Genetic study suggests caste began to dictate marriage from Gupta reign |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/genetic-study-suggests-caste-began-to-dictate-marriage-from-gupta-reign/ |access-date=2023-04-05 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}}</ref><ref name="deccanherald.com">{{cite news |last1=Kalyan |first1=Ray |title=Caste originated during Gupta dynasty: Study |date=27 January 2016 |url=https://www.deccanherald.com/content/525390/caste-originated-during-gupta-dynasty.html}}</ref> An earlier 2013 study from Tamil Nadu has suggested older (4–6 Kya) origins of endogamy based upon male lineages.<ref>Population Differentiation of Southern Indian Male Lineages Correlates with Agricultural Expansions Predating the Caste System https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050269</ref> <ref>Caste system: an indigenous invention in South India? https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/caste-system-an-indigenous-invention-in-south-india/article4290662.ece</ref> 

''Jatis'' have existed in India among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and tribal people, and there is no clear linear order among them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ingold |first=Tim |title=Companion encyclopedia of anthropology |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-415-28604-6 |pages=1026–1027}}</ref>

====Caste====
{{Main|Caste}}

The term ''caste'' is derived from the Portuguese word ''casta'', meaning "race, lineage, breed" and, originally, "'pure or unmixed (stock or breed)".<ref>{{cite web |date=1989 |title=Caste, n. |url=http://www.oed.com |website=Oxford English Dictionary}}</ref> Originally not an Indian word, it is now widely used in English and in [[Languages of India|Indian languages]], closely translated to ''varna'' and ''jati''.{{sfnp|Corbridge|Harriss|Jeffrey|2013|p=239}}

===Ghurye's 1932 description===

The [[sociology|sociologist]] [[G. S. Ghurye]] wrote in 1932 that, despite much study by many people, {{blockquote|we do not possess a real general definition of caste. It appears to me that any attempt at definition is bound to fail because of the complexity of the phenomenon. On the other hand, much literature on the subject is marred by lack of precision about the use of the term.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=1–2}}}}

Ghurye offered what he thought was a definition that could be applied across India, although he acknowledged that there were regional variations on the general theme. His model definition for caste included the following six characteristics:{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=2–22}}

* Segmentation of society into groups whose membership was determined by birth.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=2–5}}
* A hierarchical system wherein generally the Brahmins were at the head of the hierarchy, but this hierarchy was disputed in some cases. In various linguistic areas, hundreds of castes had a gradation generally acknowledged by everyone.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=6–7}}
* Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, with minute rules on the kind of food and drink that upper castes could accept from lower castes. There was a great diversity in these rules, and lower castes generally accepted food from upper castes.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=7–10}}
* Segregation, where individual castes lived together, the dominant caste living in the center and other castes living on the periphery.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=10–15}} There were restrictions on the use of water wells or streets by one caste on another: an upper-caste Brahmin might not be permitted to use the street of a lower-caste group, while a caste considered impure might not be permitted to draw water from a well used by members of other castes.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=11–12}}
* Occupation, generally inherited.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=15–16}} Lack of unrestricted choice of profession, caste members restricted their own members from taking up certain professions they considered degrading. This characteristic of caste was missing from large parts of India, stated Ghurye, and in these regions all four castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras) did agriculture labour or became warriors in large numbers.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=16–17}}
* [[Endogamy]], restrictions on marrying a person outside caste, but in some situations [[hypergamy]] allowed.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=18–19}} Far less rigidity on inter-marriage between different sub-castes than between members of different castes in some regions, while in some, endogamy within a sub-caste was the principal feature of caste-society.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|p=22}}

The above Ghurye's model of caste thereafter attracted scholarly criticism<ref>{{cite book | author=Pradip Bose |editor=A.R. Momin | title=The legacy of G.S. Ghurye : a centennial festschrift | publisher=Popular | year=1996 | isbn=978-81-7154-831-6 | pages=65–68}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Berreman |first=Gerald |author-link=Gerald Berreman |title=Caste as social process|journal=Southwestern Journal of Anthropology|pages=351–370|volume=23|issue=4|jstor=3629451|year=1967|doi=10.1086/soutjanth.23.4.3629451|s2cid=147334027}}</ref> for relying on the census reports produced by the colonial government,{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=1–2}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Midgley | first=James | title=Colonialism and welfare : social policy and the British imperial legacy | publisher=Edward Elgar | location=United Kingdom | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-85793-243-3 | pages=89–90}}</ref> the "superior, inferior" racist theories of [[Herbert Hope Risley|H. H. Risley]],{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=136–139}} and for fitting his definition to then prevalent orientalist perspectives on caste.{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=117–125}}<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Hindu Nationalist Sociology of G.S. Ghurye|author=Carol Upadhya|journal=Sociological Bulletin|volume=51|number=1|date=March 2002|pages=28–57|jstor=23620062}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Pradip Bose |editor=A.R. Momin | title=The legacy of G.S. Ghurye : a centennial festschrift | publisher=Popular | year=1996 | isbn=978-81-7154-831-6 | pages=66–67|quote=[On caste] Ghurye (...) is much influenced by the nineteenth century orientalist historical explanations, which were based basically on three kinds of formulations: the Indo-European or Dravidian theory, the racial theory and the diffusionist theory. (...) At a subsequent stage European social theory, evident in census reports and ethnographic accounts also shape Ghurye's account of the caste system.}}</ref>

Ghurye added, in 1932, that the colonial construction of caste led to the livening up, divisions and lobbying to the British officials for favourable caste classification in India for economic opportunities, and this had added new complexities to the concept of caste.<ref>{{cite book | last=Midgley | first=James | title=Colonialism and welfare : social policy and the British imperial legacy | publisher=Edward Elgar | location=United Kingdom | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-85793-243-3 | pages=86–88}}</ref>{{sfnp|Ghurye|1969|pp=278–279; this is pp. 158–159 in the 1932 edition of Ghurye}} Graham Chapman and others have reiterated the complexity and they note that there are differences between theoretical constructs and the practical reality.{{sfnp|Chapman, Religious vs. Regional Determinism|1993|pp=10–14}}

===Modern perspective on definition===
[[Ronald Inden]], the [[Indology|Indologist]], agrees that there has been no universally accepted definition of "caste". For example, for some early European documenters it was thought to correspond with the endogamous ''varnas'' referred to in ancient Indian scripts, and its meaning corresponds in the sense of ''[[Estates of the realm|estates]]''. To later Europeans of the Raj era it was endogamous ''jatis'', rather than ''varnas'', that represented ''caste'', such as the 2,378 ''jatis'' that colonial administrators classified by occupation in the early 20th century.{{sfnp|Inden|2001|p=59}}

[[Arvind Sharma]], a professor of [[comparative religion]], notes that ''caste'' has been used synonymously to refer to both ''varna'' and ''jati'' but that "serious Indologists now observe considerable caution in this respect" because, while related, the concepts are considered to be distinct.{{sfnp|Sharma|2000|p=132}} In this he agrees with the Indologist [[Arthur Llewellyn Basham|Arthur Basham]], who noted that the Portuguese colonists of India used ''casta'' to describe {{blockquote|...&nbsp;tribes, clans or families. The name stuck and became the usual word for the Hindu social group. In attempting to account for the remarkable proliferation of castes in 18th- and 19th-century India, authorities credulously accepted the traditional view that by a process of intermarriage and subdivision the 3,000 or more castes of modern India had evolved from the four primitive classes, and the term 'caste' was applied indiscriminately to both ''varna'' or class, and ''jati'' or caste proper. This is a false terminology; castes rise and fall in the social scale, and old castes die out and new ones are formed, but the four great classes are stable. There are never more or less than four and for over 2,000 years their order of precedence has not altered."{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}}}} The sociologist [[Andre Beteille|André Beteille]] notes that, while ''varna'' mainly played the role of caste in classical Hindu literature, it is ''jati'' that plays that role in present times. ''Varna'' represents a closed collection of social orders whereas ''jati'' is entirely open-ended, thought of as a "natural kind whose members share a common substance." Any number of new ''jatis'' can be added depending on need, such as tribes, sects, denominations, religious or linguistic minorities and nationalities. Thus, "Caste" is not an accurate representation of ''jati'' in English. Better terms would be ethnicity, ethnic identity and ethnic group.{{sfnp|Béteille|1996|pp=15–25}}

===Complexity and flexibility===
Research on caste systems across the Indian subcontinent during the latter 1900s revealed that caste was far more complex and dynamic than previously thought. While British colonial authorities had portrayed it as a uniform, rigid system fundamental to Indian society, studies showed that caste's significance and structure varied considerably between regions. Rather than being a fixed hierarchy, caste functioned as one of several possible forms of social organization and identity. People could maintain multiple community affiliations, with caste sometimes taking precedence and other times being secondary to different social bonds. This flexibility allowed caste to serve as one way of creating social cohesion while leaving room for other types of community ties to flourish.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-6207-1 |title=Handbook of Indian History |date=2024-11-21 |publisher=Springer Singapore |isbn=978-981-97-6207-1 |pages=372 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-981-97-6207-1 |editor-last1=Vemsani |editor-first1=Lavanya }}</ref>

Sociologist Anne Waldrop observes that while outsiders view the term caste as a static phenomenon of stereotypical tradition-bound India, empirical facts suggest caste has been a radically changing feature. The term means different things to different Indians. In the context of politically active modern India, where job and school quotas are reserved for affirmative action based on castes, the term has become a sensitive and controversial subject.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Dalit Politics in India and New Meaning of Caste |first=Anne |last=Waldrop |journal=Forum for Development Studies |volume=31 |issue=2 |year=2004 |doi=10.1080/08039410.2004.9666283 |pages=275–305|s2cid=144352948 }}</ref>

Sociologists such as [[M. N. Srinivas]] and Damle have debated the question of rigidity in caste and believe that there is considerable flexibility and mobility in the caste hierarchies.{{sfnp|Silverberg|1969}}{{sfnp|M. N. Srinivas, Coorgs of South India|1952|p=32}}

==Origins==
{{Infobox
| title=Caste system in 19th century India
| image=
{{image array|perrow=2|width=135|height=100
| image1=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (18).jpg |caption1=Hindu musician
| image2=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (16).jpg |caption2=Muslim merchant
| image3=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (8).jpg |caption3=Sikh chief
| image4=Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India (5).jpg |caption4=Arab soldier
}}
|caption=Pages from ''Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India'' according to Christian Missionaries in February 1837. They include Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Arabs as castes of India.
}}

===Perspectives===
There are at least two perspectives for the origins of the caste system in ancient and medieval India, which focus on either ideological factors or on socio-economic factors.
* The first school of thought focuses on ideological factors that are claimed to drive the caste system and hold that caste is rooted in the four ''varnas''. This perspective was particularly common among scholars during the British colonial era and was articulated by Dumont, who concluded that the system was ideologically perfected several thousand years ago and has remained the primary social reality ever since. This school primarily justifies its theory by citing the ancient law book ''[[Manusmriti]]'' <ref>{{cite web | url=https://velivada.com/2017/05/31/casteist-quotes-verses-manusmriti-law-book-hindus/ | title=Casteist Verses from Manusmriti – Law Book of Hindus &#124; Velivada }}</ref>and has been critiziced for disregarding economic, political and historical evidence.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=55–58}}{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|p=181}}
* The second school of thought focuses on socioeconomic factors, claiming that those factors drive the caste system. It believes caste to be rooted in the economic, political and material history of India.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=19–24}} This school, which is common among scholars of the post-colonial era such as [[Gerald Berreman|Berreman]], Marriott, and [[Castes of Mind|Dirks]], describes the caste system as an ever-evolving social reality that can only be properly understood by the study of historical evidence of actual practice and the examination of verifiable circumstances in the economic, political and material history of India.{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|pp=180–183}}{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=56–57}} This school has focused on the historical evidence from ancient and medieval society in India, during the [[Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent|Muslim rule between the 12th and 18th centuries]], and the policies of the British colonial government from 18th century to the mid-20th century.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=38–43}}{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=38–43}}

The first school has focused on religious anthropology and disregarded other historical evidence as secondary or derivative of this tradition.{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|p=184}} The second school has focused on sociological evidence and sought to understand the historical circumstances.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=5–7}} The latter has criticised the former for its caste origin theory, claiming that it has dehistoricized and decontextualised Indian society.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|p=59}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Ganguly | first=Debjani | title=Caste, colonialism and counter-modernity: notes on a postcolonial hermeneutics of caste | publisher=Routledge | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-415-54435-1 | pages=5–10}}</ref>

===Ritual kingship model===

According to Samuel, referencing [[George L. Hart]], central aspects of the later Indian caste system may originate from the ritual kingship system prior to the arrival of Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism in India. The system is seen in the South Indian Tamil literature from the [[Sangam period]] (3rd BCE-3rd c.CE). This theory discards the Indo-Aryan ''varna'' model as the basis of caste, and is centred on the ritual power of the king, who was "supported by a group of ritual and magical specialists of low social status," with their ritual occupations being considered 'polluted'. According to Hart, it may be this model that provided the concerns with "pollution" of the members of low status groups. The Hart model for caste origin, writes Samuel, envisions "the ancient Indian society consisting of a majority without internal caste divisions and a minority consisting of a number of small occupationally polluted groups".{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|pp=83–89}}

===Vedic ''varnas''===

The ''varnas'' originated in  late [[Vedic period|Vedic society]] (c. 1000–500 BCE). The first three groups, [[Brahmin|Brahmins]], [[Kshatriya|Kshatriyas]] and [[Vaishya]], have parallels with other Indo-European societies, while the addition of the [[Shudra|Shudras]] is probably a Brahmanical invention from northern India.{{sfnp|Samuel, Origins of Yoga and Tantra|2008|pp=86–87}}<!-- Outside, below or parallel to the four varna categories, there were social groups such as tribals and untouchables, who had an ambivalent position.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001}}-->

The ''varna'' system is propounded in revered Hindu religious texts, and understood as idealised human callings.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=8}}{{sfnp|Thapar|2004|p=63}} The ''[[Purusha Sukta]]'' of the ''[[Rigveda]]'' and ''[[Manusmriti]]''{{'}}s comment on it, being the oft-cited texts.<ref>{{cite book | author=David Lorenzen | title=Who invented Hinduism : essays on religion in History | publisher=Yoda Press |year=2006 | isbn=978-81-902272-6-1 | pages=147–149| author-link=David Lorenzen }}</ref> Counter to these textual classifications, many revered Hindu texts and doctrines question and disagree with this system of social classification.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=9}}

Scholars have questioned the ''varna'' verse in the ''Rigveda'', noting that the ''varna'' therein is mentioned only once. The ''Purusha Sukta'' verse is now generally considered to have been inserted at a later date into the ''Rigveda'', probably as a [[Origin myth|charter myth]]. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, professors of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the ''Rigveda'' for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the ''varna'' system seems to be embryonic in the ''Rigveda'' and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".<ref>{{cite book | last=Jamison| first=Stephanie | title=The Rigveda : the earliest religious poetry of India | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-19-937018-4 |pages=57–58|display-authors=etal}}</ref> In contrast to the lack of details about ''varna'' system in the ''Rigveda'', the ''Manusmriti'' includes an extensive and highly schematic commentary on the ''varna'' system, but it too provides "models rather than descriptions".<ref>{{cite book | last=Ingold | first=Tim | title=Companion encyclopedia of anthropology | publisher=Routledge | year=1994 | isbn=978-0-415-28604-6 | page=1026}}</ref> Susan Bayly summarises that ''Manusmriti'' and other scriptures helped elevate Brahmins in the social hierarchy and these were a factor in the making of the ''varna'' system, but the ancient texts did not in some way "create the phenomenon of caste" in India.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=29}}

===''Jatis''===
Jeaneane Fowler, a professor of philosophy and religious studies, states that it is impossible to determine how and why the ''jatis'' came into existence.{{sfnp|Fowler, Hinduism|1997|pp=23–24}} Susan Bayly, on the other hand, suggests that the ''jati'' system emerged because it offered a source of advantage in an era of pre-Independence poverty, lack of institutional human rights, volatile political environment, and economic insecurity.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=263–264}}{{Clarify|reason=The sentence says that the jatis emerged only in the modern period!|date=December 2016}}

According to social anthropologist Dipankar Gupta, guilds developed during the [[Maurya Empire|Mauryan]] period and crystallised into ''jatis'' in post-Mauryan times with the emergence of feudalism in India,{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|p=212}} which finally crystallised during the 7th–12th centuries.{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|p=218}} However, other scholars dispute when and how ''jatis'' developed in Indian history. Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, both professors of History, write, "One of the surprising arguments of fresh scholarship, based on inscriptional and other contemporaneous evidence, is that until relatively recent centuries, social organisation in much of the subcontinent was little touched by the four ''varnas''. Nor were ''jati'' the building blocks of society."<ref>{{cite book | author=Barbara Metcalf, Thomas Metcalf | title=A concise history of modern India | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-1-107-02649-0 | page=24}}</ref>

According to Basham, ancient Indian literature refers often to ''varnas'', but hardly if ever to ''jatis'' as a system of groups within the ''varnas''. He concludes that "If caste is defined as a system of group within the class, which are normally endogamous, commensal and craft-exclusive, we have no real evidence of its existence until comparatively late times."{{sfnp|Basham, Wonder that was India|1954|p=148}}

===Untouchable outcastes and the varna system===
The Vedic texts neither mention the concept of untouchable people nor any practice of untouchability. The rituals in the Vedas ask the noble or king to eat with the commoner from the same vessel. Later Vedic texts ridicule some professions, but the concept of untouchability is not found in them.{{sfnp|Gupta|2000|pp=190–191}}<ref>{{cite journal|journal=International Journal of Hindu Studies|year=2002|volume=6|issue=3|pages=244, 243–274|title=Rules of untouchability in ancient and medieval law books: Householders, competence, and inauspiciousness|author=Mikael Aktor|doi=10.1007/s11407-002-0002-z|s2cid=144957341}}</ref>

The post-Vedic texts, particularly ''[[Manusmriti]]'' mentions outcastes and suggests that they be ostracised. Recent scholarship states that the discussion of outcastes in post-Vedic texts is different from the system widely discussed in colonial era Indian literature, and in Dumont's structural theory on caste system in India. [[Patrick Olivelle]], a professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions and credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and [[Dharmaśāstra|Dharma-sastras]], states that ancient and medieval Indian texts do not support the ritual pollution, purity-impurity premise implicit in the Dumont theory. According to Olivelle, purity-impurity is discussed in the Dharma-sastra texts, but only in the context of the individual's moral, ritual and biological pollution (eating certain kinds of food such as meat, going to bathroom). Olivelle writes in his review of post-Vedic ''Sutra'' and ''Shastra'' texts, "we see no instance when a term of pure/impure is used with reference to a group of individuals or a ''varna'' or caste". The only mention of impurity in the ''Shastra'' texts from the 1st millennium is about people who commit grievous sins and thereby fall out of their ''varna''. These, writes Olivelle, are called "fallen people" and considered impure in the medieval Indian texts. The texts declare that these sinful, fallen people be ostracised.<ref name="Olivelle 2008 240–241">{{cite book | last=Olivelle | first=Patrick | title=''Chapter 9. Caste and Purity'' in Collected essays | publisher=Firenze University Press | location=Firenze, Italy | year=2008 | isbn=978-88-8453-729-4 | pages=240–241}}</ref> Olivelle adds that the overwhelming focus in matters relating to purity/impurity in the Dharma-sastra texts concerns "individuals irrespective of their ''varna'' affiliation" and all four ''varnas'' could attain purity or impurity by the content of their character, ethical intent, actions, innocence or ignorance (acts by children), stipulations, and ritualistic behaviours.<ref>{{cite book | last=Olivelle | first=Patrick | title=''Chapter 9. Caste and Purity'' in Collected essays | publisher=Firenze University Press | location=Firenze, Italy | year=2008 | isbn=978-88-8453-729-4 | pages=240–245}}</ref>

Dumont, in his later publications, acknowledged that ancient varna hierarchy was not based on purity-impurity ranking principle, and that the Vedic literature is devoid of the untouchability concept.{{sfnp|Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus|1980|pp=66, 68, 73, 193}}

===Genetics research===
In the 21st century, advanced genetic research enabled [[biologist]]s and [[geneticist]]s to study the antiquity of castes in India. In studying the degree of genetic differentiation of each ''jati'' with all others on the basis of differences of [[mutation]] frequencies, they identified a degree of differentiation that is at least three times greater than that among European groups separated by similar geographic distances. Lacking genetic grounds to attribute this to differences in [[Indo-Aryan migrations#Ancestral groups|Ancestral North Indians]]' ancestry among groups in the Indian region from which the population came, or in social status, they examined the evidence for [[population bottlenecks]] in the history of Indian groups:{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=143}} "[Genetical] bottlenecks occur when relatively small numbers of individuals have many offspring and their descendants too have many offspring and remain genetically isolated from the people who surround them due to social or geographic barriers." Reich provides the examples  of [[Ashkenazi Jews]] ("from  whom I descend," he notes), the population of [[Finland]], and religious dissenters such as the [[Amish]]. They found identical, long stretches of [[DNA sequencing|sequence]] between pairs of individuals within the same group, the "only explanation" for which is the pairs of individuals descended from ancestors in the last few thousands of years who carried that DNA segment.{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=143}}

Since the average size of the DNA segments reveals how long ago in the past the shared ancestors lived, the study of a [[data set]] of more than 250 ''jati'' groups, spread throughout India,<ref name=nakatsuka>Nakatsuka et al (2017)</ref> provided results that, according to the researchers, "told a clear story": Approximately a third of groups in India experienced population bottlenecks as strong or stronger than the ones found to have occurred among similarly isolated groups in human history, such as the [[Ashkenazi Jews]] or the [[Finns]], a phenomenon "exceedingly old" in most cases in India.{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=144}}: Citing one example among many "striking ones," they cite the case of the [[Vaishya]], a middle-caste group of about five million people in the southern state of [[Andra Pradesh]], who were traced to a bottleneck that occurred between three thousand and two thousand years in the past.}} The ostensibly undisputed overall conclusion from DNA research among castes is that, rather than being the invention of [[colonialism]], "as Dirks [and others] suggested," long-term [[endogamy]], as embodied in modern Indian society in the institution of caste, has been "overwhelmingly important for millennia."{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=145}}

A 2016 study based on the [[DNA analysis]] of unrelated Indians determined that [[Endogamy|endogamous]] ''jatis'' originated during the [[Gupta Empire]].<ref name="indianexpress.com" /><ref name="deccanherald.com" />

==History==

===Early Vedic period (1500-1000 BCE)===
During the early [[Vedic period]] in northern India, when the [[Rigveda]] was composed (1500-1200 BC), there were only two {{transliteration|sa|varnas}} in the Vedic society: {{transliteration|sa|[[arya]] varna}} and {{transliteration|sa|[[dasa]] varna}}. The distinction originally arose from tribal divisions.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=18}} The Vedic people were [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European-speaking]] tribes who [[Indo-European migrations|migrated]] over a period of several centuries into northern South Asia from the [[Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex|Bactria-Margiana]],{{sfnp|Narasimhan et al.|2019}} and mixed with the "indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations," but regarded themselves as superior.{{sfnp|Bamshad et al.|2001}} The Vedic tribes regarded themselves as {{transliteration|sa|arya}} (the noble ones) and the rival tribes were called ''dasa'', ''dasyu'' and ''pani''. The ''dasas'' were frequent allies of the Aryan tribes, and they were probably assimilated into the Aryan society, giving rise to a class distinction.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=18}} Many ''dasas'' were, however, in a servile position, giving rise to the eventual meaning of ''dasa'' as servant or slave.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|pp=22–23}}

The ''Rigvedic'' society was not distinguished by occupations. Many husbandmen and artisans practised a number of crafts. The chariot-maker ({{transliteration|sa|rathakara}}) and metal worker ({{transliteration|sa|karmara}}) enjoyed positions of importance and no stigma was attached to them. Similar observations hold for carpenters, tanners, weavers and others.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|pp=27–28}}

Towards the end of the [[Atharvaveda]] period, new class distinctions emerged. The erstwhile ''dasas'' are renamed Shudras, probably to distinguish them from the new meaning of ''dasa'' as slave. The {{transliteration|sa|aryas}} are renamed ''vis'' or Vaishya (meaning the members of the tribe) and the new elite classes of ''Brahmins'' (priests) and ''Kshatriyas'' (warriors) are designated as new ''varnas''. The Shudras were not only the erstwhile ''dasas'' but also included the aboriginal tribes that were assimilated into the Aryan society as it expanded into Gangetic settlements.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|pp=29–31}} This class-distinction is still reflected in the fact that the upper castes have a higher genetic affinity to Europeans, while the lower castes are more similar to Asians.{{sfnp|Bamshad et al.|2001}}{{sfnp|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfnp|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}

There is no evidence of restrictions regarding food and marriage during the Vedic period.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=40}} According to Moorjani et al. (2013), co-authored by Reich, extensive admixture took place between 2200 BCE and 100 CE (4200 to 1900 before present), whereafter India shifted to "a region in which mixture was rare."{{sfnp|Moorjani et al.|2013}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020|p=203}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020a|p=22}} In southern India, endogamy may have set in a 1000 years earlier.{{refn|group=note|name="Bronkhorst_South_India"}}

===Later Vedic period (1000–600 BC)===
In an early Upanishad, Shudra is referred to as ''Pūşan'' or nourisher, suggesting that Shudras were the tillers of the soil.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=44}} But soon afterwards, Shudras are not counted among the tax-payers and they are said to be given away along with the land when it is gifted.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|pp=46–47}} The majority of the artisans were also reduced to the position of Shudras, but there is no contempt indicated for their work.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=48}} The Brahmins and the Kshatriyas are given a special position in the rituals, distinguishing them from both the Vaishyas and the Shudras.{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|p=58}} The Vaishya is said to be "oppressed at will" and the Shudra "beaten at will."{{sfnp|Sharma|1958|pp=59–60}}

===Second urbanisation (500–200 BC)===
Knowledge of this period is supplemented by [[Pali language|Pali]] Buddhist texts. Whereas the Brahmanical texts speak of the four-fold ''varna'' system, the Buddhist texts present an alternative picture of the society, stratified along the lines of ''jati'', ''kula'' and occupation. It is likely that the ''varna'' system, while being a part of the Brahmanical ideology, was not practically operative in the society.{{sfnp|Chakravarti|1985|p=358}} In the Buddhist texts, Brahmin and Kshatriya are described as ''jatis'' rather than ''varnas''. They were in fact the ''jatis'' of high rank. The ''jatis'' of low rank were mentioned as ''[[chandala]]'' and occupational classes like bamboo weavers, hunters, chariot-makers and sweepers. The concept of ''kulas'' was broadly similar. Along with Brahmins and Kshatriyas, a class called {{transliteration|sa|gahapatis}} (literally householders, but effectively propertied classes) was also included among high ''kulas''.{{sfnp|Chakravarti|1985|p=357}} The people of high {{transliteration|sa|kulas}} were engaged in occupations of high rank, ''viz''., agriculture, trade, cattle-keeping, computing, accounting and writing, and those of low {{transliteration|sa|kulas}} were engaged in low-ranked occupations such as basket-weaving and sweeping. The {{transliteration|sa|gahapatis}} were an economic class of land-holding agriculturists, who employed ''dasa-kammakaras'' (slaves and hired labourers) to work on the land. The {{transliteration|sa|gahapatis}} were the primary taxpayers of the state. This class was apparently not defined by birth, but by individual economic growth.{{sfnp|Chakravarti|1985|p=359}}

While there was an alignment between ''kulas'' and occupations at least at the high and low ends, there was no strict linkage between class/caste and occupation, especially among those in the middle range. Many occupations listed such as accounting and writing were not linked to ''jatis''.{{sfnp|Chakravarti|2003|pp=47, 49}}
Peter Masefield, in his review of caste in India, states that anyone could in principle perform any profession. The texts state that the Brahmin took food from anyone, suggesting that strictures of commensality were as yet unknown.{{sfnp|Masefield|1986|p=148}} The ''[[Nikaya]]'' texts also imply that endogamy was not mandated.{{sfnp|Masefield|1986|p=149}}
<!-- This has been contradicted above:
Masefield concludes, "if any form of caste system was known during the Nikaya period—and it is doubtful that it was—this was in all probability restricted to certain non-Aryan groups".{{sfnp|Masefield|1986|p=149}} -->

The contestations of the period are also evident from the texts describing dialogues of Buddha with the Brahmins. The Brahmins maintain their divinely ordained superiority and assert their right to draw service from the lower orders. Buddha responds by pointing out the basic facts of biological birth common to all men and asserts that the ability to draw service is obtained economically, not by divine right. Using the example of the northwest of the subcontinent, Buddha points out that {{transliteration|sa|aryas}} could become {{transliteration|sa|dasas}} and vice versa. This form of social mobility was endorsed by Buddha.{{sfnp|Chakravarti|2003|pp=45–46}}

===Early Hinduism (200 BC–320 AD) and Classical period (320–650 AD)===
{{See also|Dharmaśāstra|Hindu synthesis}}

According to Moorjani et al. (2013), endogamy set in after 100 CE.{{sfnp|Moorjani et al.|2013}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020|p=203}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020a|p=22}} According to Basu et al. (2016), admixture between populations was "rapidly replaced by endogamy [...] among upper castes and Indo-European speakers predominantly[...] almost simultaneously, possibly by decree of the rulers, in upper-caste populations of all geographical regions, about 70 generations before present, probably during the reign (319–550 CE) of the ardent Hindu Gupta rulers."{{sfnp|Basu et al.|2016}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020|p=2020-203}}{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020a|p=22}} [[Johannes Bronkhorst]], referring to Basu et al. (2016) and Moorjani et al. (2013) states that "it seems safe to conclude that a shift to endogamy took place during the first half of the first millennium CE, at least in northern India,"{{refn|group=note|name="Bronkhorst_South_India"|{{harvnb|Bronkhorst|2020|p=203, note 65}} notes that Moorjani et al. (2013) "leaves us with the suspicion that endogamy had been adopted in the Dravidian south a full thousand years before the north, thus suggesting that something like a "caste system existed there already before and independently of Brahmanical influences."}} due to the growing influence of Brahmanism.{{sfnp|Bronkhorst|2020|p=203}} This shift is attested in the [[Manusmriti]] (1st to 3rd century CE), which "explicitly forbade intermarriage across castes."<ref>Tia Ghose (2013), [https://www.livescience.com/38751-genetic-study-reveals-caste-system-origins.html ''Genetic Study Reveals Origin of India's Caste System''], Live Science</ref>

The [[Mahabharata]], estimated to have been completed by the end of the fourth century CE, discusses the ''varna'' system in section 12.181, presenting two models. The first model describes ''varna'' as a colour-based system, through a character named Bhrigu, "Brahmins ''varna'' was white, Kshatriyas was red, Vaishyas was yellow, and the Shudras' black". This description is questioned by Bharadvaja who says that colors are seen among all the ''varnas'', that desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger and toil prevails over all human beings, that bile and blood flow from all human bodies, so what distinguishes the ''varnas'', he asks. The Mahabharata then declares, "There is no distinction of ''varnas''. This whole universe is [[Brahman]]. It was created formerly by [[Brahma]], came to be classified by acts."{{sfnp|Hiltebeitel|2011|pp=529–531}} The epic then recites a behavioural model for ''varna'', that those who were inclined to anger, pleasures and boldness attained the Kshatriya ''varna''; those who were inclined to cattle rearing and living off the plough attained the Vaishya ''varna''; those who were fond of violence, covetousness and impurity attained the Shudra ''varna''. The Brahmin class is modeled in the epic as the archetype default state of man dedicated to truth, austerity and pure conduct.{{sfnp|Hiltebeitel|2011|p=532}} In the Mahabharata and pre-medieval era Hindu texts, according to Hiltebeitel, "it is important to recognise, in theory, ''varna'' is nongenealogical. The four ''varnas'' are not lineages, but categories".{{sfnp|Hiltebeitel|2011|p=594}}

===Late classical and early medieval period (650 to 1400)===
Scholars have tried to locate historical evidence for the existence and nature of ''varna'' and ''jati'' in documents and inscriptions of medieval India. Supporting evidence has been elusive and contradictory evidence has emerged.{{sfnp|Talbot, Precolonial India|2001|pp=50–51}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Orr | first=Leslie | title=Donors, devotees, and daughters of God temple women in medieval Tamilnadu | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-19-509962-1 | pages=30–31}}</ref>

''Varna'' is rarely mentioned in the extensive medieval era records of [[Andhra Pradesh]], for example. This has led Cynthia Talbot, a professor of History and Asian Studies, to question whether ''varna'' was socially significant in the daily lives of this region. Most mentions of ''varna'' in the Andhra inscriptions come from Brahmins. Two rare temple donor records from warrior families of the 14th century claim to be Shudras. One states that Shudras are the bravest, the other states that Shudras are the purest.{{sfnp|Talbot, Precolonial India|2001|pp=50–51}} Richard Eaton, a professor of history, writes, "anyone could become a warrior regardless of social origins, nor do the ''jati''—another pillar of alleged traditional Indian society—appear as features of people's identity. Occupations were fluid." Evidence shows, according to Eaton, that Shudras were part of the nobility, and many "father and sons had different professions, suggesting that social status was earned, not inherited" in the Hindu [[Kakatiya dynasty|Kakatiya]] population in the [[Deccan Plateau|Deccan]] region between the 11th and 14th centuries.<ref>{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=A social history of the Deccan, 1300–1761 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-51442-2 | pages=15–16}}</ref>

In the [[Tamil Nadu]] region of India, studied by Leslie Orr, a professor of religion, "Chola period inscriptions challenge our ideas about the structuring of (south Indian) society in general. In contrast to what Brahmanical legal texts may lead us to expect, we do not find that caste is the organising principle of society or that boundaries between different social groups are sharply demarcated."<ref>{{cite book | last=Orr | first=Leslie | title=Donors, devotees, and daughters of God temple women in medieval Tamilnadu | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-19-509962-1 | page=30}}</ref> In Tamil Nadu, during ancient and medieval period, the [[Vellalar]] were the elite caste and major patrons of literature.<ref>[[The New Cambridge History of India]]: Vijayanagara by [[Burton Stein]] p.134</ref><ref>The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel by Kanakalatha Mukund p.166</ref><ref>Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the making of the Indo-Islamic World by André Wink p.321</ref>

For the Northern Indian region, Susan Bayly writes, "until well into the colonial period, much of the subcontinent was still populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste were of only limited importance; even in parts of the so-called Hindu heartland of Gangetic upper India, the institutions and beliefs which are now often described as the elements of traditional caste were only just taking shape as recently as the early eighteenth century—that is, when the Mughal era was collapsing and western power was expanding into the subcontinent."{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=3–4}}

For western India, [[Dirk H. A. Kolff]] suggests open status social groups dominated Rajput history during the medieval period. He states, "The omnipresence of cognatic kinship and caste in North India is a relatively new phenomenon that only became dominant in the early Mughal and British periods respectively. Historically speaking, the alliance and the open status group, whether war band or religious sect, dominated medieval and early modern Indian history in a way descent and caste did not."<ref>{{cite book | last=Kolff | first=Dirk | title=Naukar, Rajput, and sepoy : the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-521-52305-9 | pages=198–199}}</ref>

[[Ādi purāṇa|Adi Purana]], an 8th-century text of Jainism by [[Jinasena]], is the first mention of ''varna'' and ''jati'' in [[Jain literature]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | pages=294, 285–295}}</ref> Jinasena does not trace the origin of ''varna'' system to Rigveda or to Purusha, but to the [[Jadabharata|Bharata]] legend. According to this legend, Bharata performed an "[[ahimsa]]-test" (test of non-violence), and during that test all those who refused to harm any living beings were called as the priestly ''varna'' in ancient India, and Bharata called them ''[[dvija]]'', twice born.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | page=289}}</ref> Jinasena states that those who are committed to the principle of non-harming and non-violence to all living beings are ''deva-Brahmaṇas'', divine Brahmins.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=The Jaina path of purification | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass | year=1998 | isbn=978-81-208-1578-0 | page=290}}</ref> The [[Ādi purāṇa]] (9th c.) also discusses the relationship between varna and jati.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/caste-tales-they-dont-tell-us/article67294100.ece|title=Caste tales they don't tell us|newspaper=The Hindu |date=15 September 2023 |last1=Pattanaik |first1=Devdutt }}</ref> According to [[Padmanabh Jaini]], a professor of Indic studies, in Jainism and Buddhism, the Adi Purana text states "there is only one ''jati'' called ''manusyajati'' or the human caste, but [[division of labour|divisions]] arise on account of their different professions".<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=Collected papers on Jaina studies | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers | year=2000 | isbn=978-81-208-1691-6 | page=340}}</ref> The caste of Kshatriya arose, according to Jainism texts, when [[Rishabha]] procured weapons to serve the society and assumed the powers of a king, while Vaishya and Shudra castes arose from different means of livelihood they specialised in.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jaini | first=Padmanabh | title=Collected papers on Jaina studies | publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers | year=2000 | isbn=978-81-208-1691-6 | pages=340–341}}</ref>

===Medieval era, Islamic Sultanates and Mughal empire period (1000 to 1750)===
Early and mid 20th century Muslim historians, such as Hashimi in 1927 and Qureshi in 1962, proposed that "caste system was established before the arrival of Islam", and it and "a nomadic savage lifestyle" in the northwest Indian subcontinent were the primary cause why [[Sind Division|Sindhi]] non-Muslims "embraced Islam in flocks" when Arab Muslim armies invaded the region.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=30–31}}</ref> According to this hypothesis, the mass conversions occurred from the lower caste Hindus and Mahayana Buddhists who had become "corroded from within by the infiltration of Hindu beliefs and practices". This theory is now widely believed to be baseless and false.<ref name="Eaton 1993 117–122">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/117 117–122] | url=https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/117 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=31–34, 49–50}}</ref>

Derryl MacLein, a professor of social history and Islamic studies, states that historical evidence does not support this theory; that whatever evidence is available suggests that Muslim institutions in north-west India legitimised and continued any inequalities that existed; and that neither Buddhists nor "lower caste" Hindus converted to Islam because they viewed Islam to lack a caste system.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=31–32, 49}}</ref> Conversions to Islam were rare, states MacLein, and conversions attested by historical evidence confirms that the few who did convert were Brahmin Hindus (theoretically, the upper caste).<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=32–33, 49–50}}</ref> MacLein asserts that the caste and conversion theories about Indian society during the Islamic era are not based on historical evidence or verifiable sources, but rather on the personal assumptions of Muslim historians about the nature of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in the northwest Indian subcontinent.<ref>{{cite book | last=Maclean | first=Derryl | title=Religion and society in Arab Sind | publisher=Brill Academic Publishers | location=Netherlands | year=1997 | isbn=978-90-04-08551-0 | pages=33–34, 49–50}}</ref>

Richard Eaton, a professor of history at Berkley, asserts that the presumption of a rigid Hindu caste system and the oppression of lower castes in pre-Islamic era in India is the cause of "mass conversion to Islam" during the medieval era. This claim has the problem that "no evidence can be found in support of the theory, and it is profoundly illogical".<ref name="Eaton 1993 117–122"/>

[[Peter Jackson (historian)|Peter Jackson]], a professor of Medieval History and Muslim India, writes that the speculative hypotheses about the caste system in Hindu states during the medieval Delhi Sultanate period (~1200 to 1500), and the existence of a caste system, as being responsible for Hindu weakness in resisting the plunder by Islamic armies, is appealing at first sight, but "they do not withstand closer scrutiny and historical evidence".<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15">{{cite book | last=Jackson | first=Peter | title=The Delhi Sultanate : a political and military history | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-521-54329-3 | pages=14–15}}</ref> Jackson states that, contrary to the theoretical model of caste where only Kshatriyas could be warriors and soldiers, historical evidence confirms that Hindu warriors and soldiers during the medieval era included members of other castes such as Vaishyas and Shudras.<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15"/> "Further," writes Jackson, "there is no evidence that there ever was a widespread conversion to Islam at the turn of twelfth century" by Hindus of lower caste.<ref name="Jackson 2003 14–15"/> Jamal Malik, a professor of Islamic studies, extends this observation further, and states that "at no time in history did Hindus of low caste convert ''en masse'' to Islam".<ref name="Malik 2008 157">{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | page=157}}</ref>

[[Jamal Malik]] states that caste as a social stratification is a well-studied Indian system, yet evidence also suggests that hierarchical concepts, class consciousness and social stratification had already occurred in Islam before Islam arrived in India.<ref name="Malik 2008 157"/> The concept of caste, or '''qaum''<nowiki/>' in Islamic literature, is mentioned by a few Islamic historians of medieval India, states Malik, but these mentions relate to the fragmentation of the Muslim society in India.<ref>{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | pages=152–157, 221}}</ref> Zia al-Din al-Barani of [[Delhi Sultanate]] in his ''Fatawa-ye Jahandari'' and Abu al-Fadl from Akbar's court of [[Mughal Empire]] are the few Islamic court historians who mention caste. [[Ziauddin Barani|Zia al-Din al-Barani]]'s discussion, however, is not about non-Muslim castes, rather a declaration of the supremacy of ''Ashraf'' caste over ''Ardhal'' caste among the Muslims, justifying it in Quranic text, with "aristocratic birth and superior genealogy being the most important traits of a human".<ref>{{cite book | last=Malik | first=Jamal | title=Islam in South Asia a short history | publisher=Brill | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 | pages=149–153|quote="Islamic norms permit hierarchical structure, i.e., equality in islam is only in relation to God, rather than between men. Early Muslims and Muslim conquerors in India reproduced social segregation among Muslims and the conquered religious groups. (...) The writings of Abu al-Fadl at Akbar's court mention caste. (...) The courtier and historian Zia al-Din al-Barani not only avowedly detested Hindus, in his Fatawa-ye Jahandari, he also vehemently stood for ashraf supremacy.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Cook | first=Michael | title=The new Cambridge history of Islam | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-521-84443-7 | page=481}}</ref>

[[Irfan Habib]], an Indian historian, states that [[Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak|Abu al-Fazl]]'s ''Ain-i Akbari'' provides a historical record and census of the [[Jat]] peasant caste of Hindus in northern India, where the tax-collecting noble classes ([[Zamindars]]), the armed cavalry and infantry (warrior class) doubling up as the farming peasants (working class), were all of the same Jat caste in the 16th century. These occupationally diverse members from one caste served each other, writes Habib, either because of their reaction to taxation pressure of Muslim rulers or because they belonged to the same caste.<ref>{{cite book | last=Habib | first=Irfan | title=Essays in Indian history : towards a Marxist perception, with the economic history of Medieval India: a survey | publisher=Anthem Press | location=London | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-84331-061-7 | pages=250–251}}</ref> Peasant social stratification and caste lineages were, states Habib, tools for tax revenue collection in areas under the Islamic rule.<ref name="Habib2002tax">{{cite book | last=Habib | first=Irfan | title=Essays in Indian history : towards a Marxist perception, with the economic history of Medieval India: a survey | publisher=Anthem Press | location=London | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-84331-061-7 | pages=150–152}}</ref>

The origin of caste system of modern form, in the Bengal region of India, may be traceable to this period, states Richard Eaton.<ref name="Eaton 1993 103">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | page=[https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/103 103] | url=https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/103 }}</ref> The medieval era Islamic Sultanates in India utilised social stratification to rule and collect tax revenue from non-Muslims.<ref name="eaton1993tax">{{cite book | last=Eaton | first=Richard | title=The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204–1760 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-520-08077-5 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/102 102–103, 224–226] | url=https://archive.org/details/riseofislambenga00eato/page/102 }}</ref> Eaton states that, "Looking at Bengal's Hindu society as a whole, it seems likely that the caste system—far from being the ancient and unchanging essence of Indian civilisation as supposed by generations of Orientalists—emerged into something resembling its modern form only in the period 1200–1500".<ref name="Eaton 1993 103"/>

===Later-Mughal period (1700 to 1850)===
Susan Bayly, an anthropologist, notes that "caste is not and never has been a fixed fact of Indian life" and the caste system as we know it today, as a "ritualised scheme of social stratification," developed in two stages during the post-Mughal period, in 18th and early 19th century. Three sets of value played an important role in this development: priestly hierarchy, kingship, and armed ascetics.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=25–28}}

With the Islamic Mughal empire falling apart in the 18th century, regional post-Mughal ruling elites and new dynasties from diverse religious, geographical and linguistic background attempted to assert their power in different parts of India.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=29–30}} Bayly states that these obscure post-Mughal elites associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, deploying the symbols of caste and kinship to divide their populace and consolidate their power. Additionally, in this fluid, stateless environment, some of the previously casteless segments of society grouped themselves into caste groups.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=26–27|ps=:What happened in the initial phase of this two-stage sequence was the rise of the royal man of prowess. In this period, both kings and the priests and ascetics with whom men of power were able to associate their rule became a growing focus for the affirmation of a martial and regal form of caste ideal. (...) The other key feature of this period was the reshaping of many apparently casteless forms of devotional faith in a direction which further affirmed these differentiations of rank and community.}} However, in 18th century, writes Bayly, India-wide networks of merchants, armed ascetics and armed tribal people often ignored these ideologies of caste.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=30}} Most people did not treat caste norms as given absolutes writes Bayly, but challenged, negotiated and adapted these norms to their circumstances. Communities teamed in different regions of India, into "collective classing" to mold the social stratification in order to maximise assets and protect themselves from loss.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=30–31}} The "caste, class, community" structure that formed became valuable in a time when state apparatus was fragmenting, was unreliable and fluid, when rights and life were unpredictable.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=31}}

In this environment, states [[Polly O'Hanlon|Rosalind O'Hanlon]], a professor of Indian history, the newly arrived East India Company colonial officials, attempted to gain commercial interests in India by balancing Hindu and Muslim conflicting interests, and by aligning with regional rulers and large assemblies of military monks. The East India Company officials adopted constitutional laws segregated by religion and caste.<ref name="Peers 2012 104–108">{{cite book | last=Peers | first=Douglas | title=India and the British empire | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-19-925988-5 | pages=104–108}}</ref> The legal code and colonial administrative practice was largely divided into Muslim law and Hindu law, the latter including laws for Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. In this transitory phase, Brahmins together with scribes, ascetics and merchants who accepted Hindu social and spiritual codes, became the deferred-to-authority on Hindu texts, law and administration of Hindu matters.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|p=27}}{{efn|Sweetman notes that the Brahmin had a strong influence on the British understanding of India, thereby also influencing the methods of British rule and western understandings of Hinduism, and gaining a stronger position in Indian society.{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|p=13}}}}

While legal codes and state administration were emerging in India, with the rising power of the European powers, Dirks states that the late 18th-century British writings on India say little about caste system in India, and predominantly discuss territorial conquest, alliances, warfare and diplomacy in India.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|p=28}} Colin Mackenzie, a British social historian of this time, collected vast numbers of texts on Indian religions, culture, traditions and local histories from south India and Deccan region, but his collection and writings have very little on caste system in 18th-century India.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=29–30}}

===During British rule (1857 to 1947)===
Although the ''varnas'' and ''jatis'' have pre-modern origins, the caste system as it exists today is the result of developments during the post-Mughal period and the [[British Raj|British colonial period]], which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=25–27, 392}}{{sfnp|St. John|2012|p=10|ps=3}}{{sfnp|Sathaye|2015|p=214}}

====Basis====
''Jati'' were the basis of caste ethnology during the British colonial era. In the 1881 census and thereafter, colonial ethnographers used caste (''jati'') headings to count and classify people in what was then [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|British India]] (now India, [[Pakistan]], [[Bangladesh]] and [[Myanmar]]).{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=125–126}} The 1891 census included 60 sub-groups each subdivided into six occupational and racial categories, and the number increased in subsequent censuses.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=212–217}} The colonial era census caste tables, states Susan Bayly, "ranked, standardised and cross-referenced jati listings for Indians on principles similar to zoology and botanical classifications, aiming to establish who was superior to whom by virtue of their supposed purity, occupational origins and collective moral worth". While bureaucratic colonial officials completed reports on their zoological classification of Indian people, some British officials criticised these exercises as being little more than a caricature of the reality of caste system in India. The colonial officials used the census-determined jatis to decide which group of people were qualified for which jobs in the colonial government, and people of which jatis were to be excluded as unreliable.{{sfnp|Bayly|2001|pp=125–127}} These census caste classifications, states Gloria Raheja, a professor of anthropology, were also used by colonial officials over the late 19th century and early 20th century, to formulate land tax rates, as well as to frequently target some social groups as "criminal" castes and castes prone to "rebellion".<ref>{{cite book | last=Raheja | first=Gloria | title=Colonial subjects : essays on the practical history of anthropology (editors: Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink) | publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=2000 | isbn=978-0-472-08746-4 | pages=120–122}}</ref>

The population then comprised about 200 million people, across five major religions, and over 500,000 agrarian villages, each with a population between 100 and 1,000 people of various age groups, which were variously divided into numerous castes. This ideological scheme was theoretically composed of around 3,000 castes, which in turn was claimed to be composed of 90,000 local endogamous sub-groups.{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000}}{{sfnp|Stokes|1973}}<ref name=ldj1>{{cite book |title=Identity and Identification in India (see review of sociology journal articles starting page 42)|first=Laura |last=Dudley-Jenkins |isbn=978-0-415-56062-7 |publisher=Routledge |date=October 2009}}</ref><ref name=bates95>{{cite journal|title=Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry |first=Crispin |last=Bates |journal=Edinburgh Papers in South Asian Studies |issue=3 |year=1995 |url=http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/38426/WP03_BATES_RaceCaste_and_Tribe.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130614132128/http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/38426/WP03_BATES_RaceCaste_and_Tribe.pdf |archive-date=14 June 2013}}</ref>

The strict [[Social class in the United Kingdom|British class system]] may have influenced the British preoccupation with the Indian caste system as well as the British perception of pre-colonial Indian castes. British society's own similarly rigid class system provided the British with a template for understanding Indian society and castes.<ref name="ghuman">{{cite book|last1=Ghuman|first1=Paul|title=British Untouchables: A Study of Dalit Identity and Education|date=2013|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|page=18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iNahAgAAQBAJ&q=british+class+system+india+caste&pg=PA18|isbn=978-1-4094-9431-7}}</ref> The British, coming from a society rigidly divided by class, attempted to equate India's castes with British [[social class]]es.<ref name="jha">{{cite book|last1=Jha|first1=Pravin Kumar|title=Indian Politics in Comparative Perspective|publisher=Pearson Education India|page=102|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I8OuIjo6KOAC&q=indian+caste+system+%22equatE%22&pg=PA102|isbn=978-81-317-9887-4|year=2012}}</ref><ref name="jt">{{cite book|last1=JT|title=Origin of Caste in India|date=2014|publisher=Partridge Publishing|page=18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rrSEAwAAQBAJ&q=british+class+system+india+origin&pg=PA18|isbn=978-1-4828-1914-4}}</ref> According to [[David Cannadine]], Indian castes merged with the traditional British class system during the British Raj.<ref name="malesevic">{{cite book|last1=Malešević|first1=Siniša|last2=Haugaard|first2=Mark|title=Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yL81fd7VIGoC&q=british+class+system+india+caste&pg=PA67|isbn=978-0-521-88291-0}}</ref><ref name="cannadine">{{cite book|last1=Cannadine|first1=David|title=Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire|url=https://archive.org/details/ornamentalism00davi|url-access=registration|date=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-515794-9}}</ref>

====Sanskritisation====
{{main|Sanskritisation}}{{see also|De-Sanskritisation}}
Sanskritisation is often aimed to claim the ''Varna'' status of Brahmin or Kshatriyas, the two prestigious Varna of the Vedic-age Varna system. One of the main examples of that is various non-elite pastoral communities like [[Ahir]], [[Gopa (caste)|Gopa]], [[Ahar caste|Ahar]], Goala etc. who adopted the [[Yadav]] word as part of a Sanskritisation effort to gain upward mobility in society during late 19th century to early 20th century.<ref name="socialesAnthropology2001">{{cite book|last1=Jassal|first1=Smita Tewari|author2=École pratique des hautes études (France). Section des sciences économiques et sociales|author3=University of Oxford. Institute of Social Anthropology|title=Contributions to Indian sociology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jA0tAQAAIAAJ|year=2001|publisher=Mouton|pages=319–351|chapter=Caste in the Colonial State: Mallahs in the census}} Quote: "The movement, which had a wide interregional spread, attempted to submerge regional names such as Goala, Ahir, Ahar, Gopa, etc., in favour of the generic term Yadava (Rao 1979). Hence a number of pastoralist castes were subsumed under Yadava, in accordance with decisions taken by the regional and national level caste sabhas.  The Yadavas became the first among the shudras to gain the right to wear the janeu, a case of successful sanskritisation which continues till date.  As a prominent agriculturist caste in the region, despite belonging to the shudra varna, the Yadavas claimed Kshatriya status tracing descent from the Yadu dynasty.  The caste's efforts matched those of census officials, for whom standardisation of overlapping names was a matter of policy.  The success of the Yadava movement also lies in the fact that, among the jaati sabhas, the Yadava sabha was probably the strongest, its journal, ''Ahir Samachar'', having an all-India spread. These factors strengthened local efforts, such as in Bhojpur, where the Yadavas, locally known as Ahirs, refused to do ''[[begar]]'', or forced labour, for the landlords and simultaneously prohibited liquor consumption, child marriages, and so on."</ref><ref name=Mandelbaum1970p443>{{cite book |title=Society in India |volume=2 |first=David Goodman |last=Mandelbaum |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-520-01623-1 |page=443 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=igfd9YYCqf8C|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Jaffrelot2003-p210-211">{{cite book|last=Jaffrelot|first=Christophe|title=India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qJZp5tDuY-gC&pg=PA210|year=2003|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-12786-8|pages=210–211|language=en}} Quote: "In his typology of low caste movements, (M. S. A.) Rao distinguishes five categories.  The first is characterised by 'withdrawal and self-organisation'.  ... The second one, illustrated by the Yadavs, is based on the claim of 'higher ''varna'' status' and fits with Sanskritisation pattern. ..."</ref><ref name="LeshnikSontheimer1975">{{cite book|last1=Leshnik|first1=Lawrence S.|last2=Sontheimer|first2=Günther-Dietz|title=Pastoralists and nomads in South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0rEKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA218|year=1975|publisher=O. Harrassowitz|page=218|isbn=9783447015523}} Quote: "The Ahir and allied cowherd castes (whether actually pastoralists or cultivators, as in the Punjab) have recently organized a pan-Indian caste association with political as well as social reformist goals using the epic designation of Yadava (or Jadava) Vanshi Kshatriya, ie the warrior caste descending from the Yadava lineage of the Mahabharata fame."</ref> Similar attempts were made by communities which were historically classed as non-elite tillers like [[Kurmi]]<ref name=Jaffrelot2003p197>{{cite book |title=India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India |page=196 |first=Christophe |last=Jaffrelot |publisher=C. Hurst & Co. |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85065-670-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAkW94DtUMAC}}</ref> and various communities like [[Koeri]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prakash |first=Om |title=Political Awakening, Caste Movement and Congress Behaviour |date=2000 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44148171 |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |volume=61 |pages=954–957 |jstor=44148171 |issn=2249-1937}}</ref> Murao, Nai etc. from the late 19th century onwards through their caste organisations by claiming higher social status.<ref name="c812">{{cite book |last=Singh |first=J. |title=Caste, State and Society: Degrees of Democracy in North India |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-000-19606-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vfn1DwAAQBAJ |access-date=2024-10-05 |page=92}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India |page=197,199 |first=Christophe |last=Jaffrelot |publisher=C. Hurst & Co. |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85065-670-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAkW94DtUMAC}}</ref> The spread of Sanskritisation under British rule saw a significant boost. The attempts at Sanskritisation by the lower-castes before British rule were resisted by the upper-castes.<ref name="e868">{{cite book | last=Vijayan | first=P.K. | title=Gender and Hindu Nationalism: Understanding Masculine Hegemony | publisher=Taylor & Francis | series=Routledge Studies in South Asian Politics | year=2019 | isbn=978-1-317-23576-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qsuqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT144 | page=144}}</ref>

According to Jaffrelot, the formation of Caste associations was a by-product of enumeration of caste in censuses undertaken by the British regime. [[Herbert Hope Risley]], a colonial administrator who served as the census commissioner, decided to categorise castes in their local context and rank them accordingly into a Varna. This led to the creation of advocacy groups that sought upward mobility of their social and Varna status through sanskritisation. The Castes such as [[Kurmis]], [[Gadariya]]s, [[Kachhi (caste)|Kachi]], [[Jatav]]s,<ref name="d902">{{cite book |last=Lynch |first=O.M. |title=The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1969 |isbn=978-0-231-03230-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5oBAAAAMAAJ |access-date=2024-10-05 |pages=68–74}}</ref>[[Lodh]]s and [[Ahirs]] underwent sanskritisation in order to claim Kshatriya status.<ref name="Jaffrelot2003-p210-211"/>{{rp|147–148}} [[Kalwar (caste)|Kalwar]] caste is traditionally involved into distillation and selling of liquor, but around the start of the 20th century, various organisations related to the caste sought to redefine the image of their community through this process.<ref name="bayly">{{cite book |title=Locality, Province and Nation: Essays on Indian Politics 1870 to 1940 |editor1-first=John |editor1-last=Gallagher |editor2-first=Gordon |editor2-last=Johnson |editor3-first=Anil |editor3-last=Seal |edition=Reprinted |publisher=Cambridge University Press Archive |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-52109-811-3 |first=Christopher A. |last=Bayly |authorlink=Christopher Bayly |chapter=Patrons and Politics in Northern India |page=[https://archive.org/details/localityprovince0000unse/page/63 63] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x104AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA63 |url=https://archive.org/details/localityprovince0000unse/page/63 |language=en}}</ref>

====Race science====
Colonial administrator [[Herbert Hope Risley]], an exponent of [[Scientific racism|race science]], used the ratio of the width of a [[nose]] to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.{{sfnp|Trautmann|1997|p=203}}

====Enforcement====
[[File:Charles Shepherd and Arthur Robertson01.jpg|thumb|From the 1850s, photography was used in Indian subcontinent by the British for anthropological purposes, helping classify the different castes, tribes and native trades. Included in this collection were Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist ([[Sinhalese people|Sinhalese]]) people classified by castes.<ref>{{cite web|title=Online Collection (The Riddell Gifts)|publisher=National Galleries of Scotland|year=1985|url=http://www.nationalgalleries.org/}}</ref> Above is an 1860s photograph of [[Rajput]]s, classified as a high Hindu caste.]]

=====Jobs for forward castes=====
The role of the British Raj on the caste system in India is controversial.{{sfnp|Stokes|1980|pp=38–43}} The caste system became legally rigid during the Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during their [[Census of India prior to independence|ten-year census]] and meticulously codified the system.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=198–225}}{{sfnp|Stokes|1973}} Between 1860 and 1920, the British incorporated the caste system into their system of governance, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to the upper castes.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001b|pp=215–229}}

=====Targeting criminal castes and their isolation=====
Starting with the 19th century, the British colonial government passed a series of laws that applied to Indians based on their religion and caste identification.<ref>{{cite book | last=K. Parker |editor=Gerald Larson | title=Religion and personal law in secular India a call to judgment | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-253-21480-5 | pages=184–189}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=S Nigam | year=1990| title=Disciplining and Policing the "Criminals by Birth", Part 1: The Making of a Colonial Stereotype – The Criminal Tribes and Castes of North India|journal= Indian Economic & Social History Review|volume= 27|issue = 2|pages=131–164|doi=10.1177/001946469002700201| s2cid=144018398}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=S Nigam | year=1990| title=Disciplining and Policing the "Criminals by Birth", Part 2: The Development of a Disciplinary System, 1871–1900|journal = Indian Economic & Social History Review| volume = 27| issue = 3| pages = 257–287| doi=10.1177/001946469002700302| s2cid=145441031}}</ref> These colonial era laws and their provisions used the term "Tribes", which included castes within their scope. This terminology was preferred for various reasons, including Muslim sensitivities that considered castes by definition Hindu, and preferred ''Tribes'', a more generic term that included Muslims.<ref name="Stern2001">{{cite book | last=Stern | first=Robert | title=Democracy and dictatorship in South Asia | publisher=Praeger | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-275-97041-3 | pages=53–54}}</ref>

The British colonial government, for instance, enacted the [[Criminal Tribes Act]] of 1871. This law declared that all those who belonged to certain castes were born with criminal tendencies.<ref name="Cole2001"/> Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History and specialising in social exclusion in the Indian subcontinent, states that the criminal-by-birth castes under this Act included initially [[Ahir]]s, [[Gurjar]]s and [[Jat people|Jats]], but its enforcement expanded by the late 19th century to include most Shudras and untouchables, such as [[Chamar]]s,<ref name="Rawat2011">{{cite book | last=Rawat | first=Ramnarayan | title=Reconsidering untouchability : Chamars and Dalit history in North India | publisher=Indiana University Press | location=Bloomington | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-253-22262-6 | pages=26–27}}</ref> as well as [[Sannyasa|Sannyasis]] and hill tribes.<ref name="Cole2001">{{cite book | last=Cole | first=Simon | title=Suspect identities : a history of fingerprinting and criminal identification | publisher=Harvard University Press | location=Cambridge, MA | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-674-01002-4 | pages=67–72|quote=" [British] amateur ethnographers believed that Indian castes, because of their strictures against intermarriage, represented pure racial types, and they concocted the notion of '''racially inferior criminal castes''' or 'criminal tribes', inbred ethnic groups predisposed to criminal behavior by both cultural tradition and hereditary disposition"}}</ref> Castes suspected of rebelling against colonial laws and seeking self-rule for India, such as the previously ruling families [[Kallar (caste)|Kallars]] and the [[Mukkulathor|Maravars]] in south India and non-loyal castes in north India such as Ahirs, Gurjars and Jats, were called "predatory and barbarian" and added to the criminal castes list.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|pp=176–188}}<ref>{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=US| year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=69–78}}</ref> Some caste groups were targeted using the Criminal Tribes Act even when there were no reports of any violence or criminal activity, but where their forefathers were known to have rebelled against Mughal or British authorities,<ref>{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=US | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=71–74}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Birinder P. Singh | title=Criminal tribes of Punjab : a social-anthropological inquiry | publisher=Routledge | location=New York | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-415-55147-2 | pages=liv–lvi, Introduction}}</ref> or these castes were demanding labour rights and disrupting colonial tax collecting authorities.<ref>{{cite book | last=Chaturvedi | first=Vinayak | title=Peasant pasts history and memory in western India | publisher=University of California Press | location=Berkeley| year=2007 | isbn=978-0-520-25076-5 | pages=122–126 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MzPlZSOjCpsC |quote=" In 1911, the entire [[Thakera|Dharala]] [a Rajput caste] population of nearly 250,000 individuals in Kheda district was declared a criminal tribe under Act IIII of 1911, the Criminal Tribes Act."}}</ref>

The colonial government prepared a list of criminal castes, and all members registered in these castes by caste-census were restricted in terms of regions they could visit, move about in or people with whom they could socialise.<ref name="Cole2001"/> In certain regions of colonial India, entire caste groups were presumed guilty by birth, arrested, children separated from their parents, and held in penal colonies or quarantined without conviction or due process.<ref name="Schwarz2010"/><ref name="Karade2008"/><ref name="Brown2014">{{cite book | last=Brown | first=Mark | title=Penal power and colonial rule | publisher=Routledge | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-415-45213-7 | pages=176, 107, 165–188|quote="[The] criminal tribes are destined by the usage of '''caste''' to commit crime and whose dependents will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounted for..."}}</ref> This practice became controversial and did not enjoy the support of all British colonial officials. In a few cases this decades-long practice was reversed at the start of the 20th century with the proclamation that people "could not be incarcerated indefinitely on the presumption of [inherited] bad character".<ref name="Schwarz2010">{{cite book | last=Schwarz | first=Henry | title=Constructing the criminal tribe in colonial India : acting like a thief | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | location=US | year=2010 | isbn=978-1-4051-2057-9 | pages=99–101}}</ref> The criminal-by-birth laws against targeted castes was enforced until the mid-20th century, with an expansion of criminal castes list in west and south India through the 1900s to 1930s.<ref name="Karade2008">{{cite book | last=Karade | first=Jagan | title=Development of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in India | publisher=Cambridge Scholars | location=Newcastle, UK | year=2014 | isbn=978-1-4438-1027-2 | pages=25, 23–28}}</ref><ref name="Terry1995">{{cite book | last=Rachel Tolen |editor1=Jennifer Terry |editor2=Jacqueline Urla | title=Deviant bodies | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1995 | isbn=978-0-253-20975-7 | pages=84–88}}</ref> Hundreds of Hindu communities were brought under the Criminal Tribes Act. By 1931, the colonial government included 237 criminal castes and tribes under the act in the [[Madras Presidency]] alone.<ref name="Terry1995"/>

While the notion of hereditary criminals conformed to orientalist stereotypes and the prevailing [[Scientific racism|racial theories]] during the colonial era, the social impact of its enforcement was profiling, division and isolation of many communities of Hindus as criminals-by-birth.<ref name="Rawat2011"/><ref name="Brown2014"/><ref name="Yang1985">{{cite book | last=Yang | first=A. | title=Crime and criminality in British India | publisher=University of Arizona Press | location=US | year=1985 | isbn=978-0-8165-0951-5 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/crimecriminality00yang/page/112 112–127] | url=https://archive.org/details/crimecriminality00yang/page/112 }}</ref>{{efn|Karade states, "the caste quarantine list was abolished by independent India in 1947 and criminal tribes law was formally repealed in 1952 by its first parliament".<ref name="Karade2008"/>}}

=====Religion and caste segregated human rights=====
Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of History and Religions in India, states that the colonial government hardened the caste-driven divisions in India not only through its caste census, but with a series of laws in the early 20th century.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c">{{cite book | last=Nesbitt | first=Eleanor | title=Sikhism a very short introduction | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=Oxford; New York | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-19-280601-7 | pages=119–120}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Guilhem Cassan |title= Law and Identity Manipulation: Evidence from Colonial Punjab | url = http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/IMG/pdf/JobMarket-1paper-CASSAN-PSE.pdf | publisher=London School of Economics and Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee (LEA-INRA), Paris|year=2011 | pages=2–3}}</ref> Colonial officials, for instance, enacted laws such as the [[Punjab Land Alienation Act, 1900|Land Alienation Act]] in 1900 and Punjab Pre-Emption Act in 1913, listing castes that could legally own land and denying equivalent property rights to other census-determined castes. These acts prohibited the inter-generational and intra-generational transfer of land from land-owning castes to any non-agricultural castes, thereby preventing economic mobility of property and creating consequent caste barriers in India.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c"/><ref name="Ballantyne2007"/>

[[Khushwant Singh]], a Sikh historian, and [[Tony Ballantyne (historian)|Tony Ballantyne]], a professor of history, state that these colonial-era laws helped create and erect barriers within land-owning and landless castes in northwest India.<ref name="Ballantyne2007">{{cite book | last=Ballantyne | first=Tony | title=Textures of the Sikh past : new historical perspectives | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New York | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-19-568663-0 | pages=134–142}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Singh | first=Khushwant | title=A history of the Sikhs | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New Delhi | year=2004 | isbn=978-0-19-567309-8 | pages=155–156}}</ref> Caste-based discrimination and denial of human rights by the colonial state had similar impact elsewhere in India.<ref name="Debin2011">{{cite book | author1=Debin Ma|author2=Jan Luiten Van Zanden | title=Law and long-term economic change a Eurasian perspective (Anand Swamy) | publisher=Stanford University Press | location=Stanford, California | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-8047-7273-0 | pages=149–150}}</ref><ref name="Nair2011">{{cite book | last=Nair | first=Neeti | title=Changing homelands | publisher=Harvard University Press | location=Cambridge, MA | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-674-05779-1 | pages=85–86}}</ref><ref name="Guha2013">{{cite book | last=Guha | first=Sumit | title=Beyond Caste | publisher=Brill Academic | location=Leiden, Netherlands | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-24918-9 | pages=199–200}}</ref>

=====Social identity=====
[[Nicholas Dirks]] has argued that Indian caste as we know it today is a "modern phenomenon,"{{efn|{{harvtxt|Dirks|2001a|p=5}}: "Rather, I will argue that caste (again, as we know it today) is a modern phenomenon, that it is, specifically, the product of an historical encounter between India and Western colonial rule. By this I do not mean to imply that it was simply invented by the too clever British, now credited with so many imperial patents that what began as colonial critique has turned into another form of imperial adulation. But I ''am'' suggesting that it was under the British that 'caste' became a single term capable of expressing, organising, and above all 'systematising' India's diverse forms of social identity, community, and organisation. This was achieved through an identifiable (if contested) ideological canon as the result of a concrete encounter with colonial modernity during two hundred years of British domination. In short, colonialism made caste what it is today."}} as caste was "fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule."{{efn|{{harvtxt|Dirks, Scandal of Empire|2006|p=27}}: "The institution of caste, for example, a social formation that has been seen as not only basic to India but part of its ancient constitution, was fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule."}} According to Dirks, before colonial rule, caste affiliation was quite loose and fluid, but colonial rule enforced caste affiliation rigorously, and constructed a much more strict hierarchy than existed previously, with some castes being criminalised and others being given preferential treatment.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001a|p={{page needed|date=June 2015}}}}{{sfnp|Dirks, Scandal of Empire|2006|p=27}}

De Zwart notes that the caste system used to be thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, but that contemporary scholars argue instead that the system was constructed by the colonial authorities. He says that "jobs and education opportunities were allotted based on caste, and people rallied and adopted a caste system that maximized their opportunity". De Zwart also notes that post-colonial affirmative action only reinforced the "British colonial project that ex hypothesi constructed the caste system".{{sfnp|de Zwart|2000|p=235}}

Sweetman notes that the European conception of caste dismissed former political configurations and insisted upon an "essentially religious character" of India. During the colonial period, caste was defined as a religious system and was divorced from political powers. This made it possible for the colonial rulers to portray India as a society characterised by spiritual harmony in contrast to the former Indian states which they criticised as "despotic and epiphenomenal",{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|pp=14–15}}{{efn|Sweetman cites Dirks (1993), ''The Hollow Crown'', University of Michigan Press, p.xxvii}} with the colonial powers providing the necessary "benevolent, paternalistic rule by a more 'advanced' nation".{{sfnp|Sweetman|2004|p=14}}

====Further development====
Assumptions about the caste system in Indian society, along with its nature, evolved during colonial rule.{{sfnp|Stokes|1980|pp=38–43}}{{efn|For example, some Britons believed Indians would shun train travel because tradition-bound South Asians were too caught up in caste and religion, and that they would not sit or stand in the same coaches out of concern for close proximity to a member of higher or lower or shunned caste. After the launch of train services, Indians of all castes, classes and gender enthusiastically adopted train travel without any concern for so-called caste stereotypes.<ref>{{cite book |title=Engines of change: the railroads that made India|first=Ian |last=Kerr |year=2007 |publisher=Praeger Publishers |isbn=978-0-275-98564-6 |pages=89–99}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=White colonization and labour in 19th century India |first=David |last=Arnold |journal=Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |volume=XI |issue=2 |date=January 1983 |pages=133–157 |doi=10.1080/03086538308582635}}</ref>}} Corbridge concludes that British policies towards India's numerous [[Princely states|princely sovereign states]], as well as enumeration of the population into rigid categories during the 10-year census, particularly with the 1901 and 1911 census, contributed towards the hardening of caste identities.{{sfnp|Corbridge|Harriss|2000|pp=8, 243}}

Social unrest during 1920s led to a change in this policy.{{sfnp|Dirks|2001b|pp=215–229}} From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of [[positive discrimination]] by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes.<ref>The Economist (29 June 2013), [https://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/06/affirmative-action Affirmative Action], India Reservations</ref>

In the round table conference held in [[Round Table Conferences (India)#Second Round Table Conference (September–December 1931)|August 1932]], upon the request of Ambedkar, the then [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister of Britain]], [[Ramsay MacDonald]] made a [[Communal Award]] which awarded a provision for separate representation for the Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, [[Anglo-Indians]], Europeans and Dalits. These depressed classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the depressed classes only could vote. Gandhi went on a hunger strike against this provision claiming that such an arrangement would split the Hindu community into two groups. Years later, Ambedkar wrote that Gandhi's fast was a form of coercion.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Omvedt |first=Gail |author-link=Gail Omvedt |year=2012 |title=A Part That Parted |journal=Outlook India |url=http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281929 |access-date=12 August 2012}}</ref> This agreement, which saw Gandhi end his hunger strike and Ambedkar drop his demand for a separate electorate, was called the [[Poona Pact]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lv3fDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT6|title=Motivating Thoughts of Ambedkar|last=Sharma|first=Mahesh Dutt|date=27 May 2017|publisher=Prabhat Prakashan|isbn=978-93-5186-937-5|language=en}}</ref>

After India achieved independence, the policy of caste-based reservation of jobs was formalised with lists of [[Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes]].

====Other theories and observations====
Smelser and Lipset propose in their review of Hutton's study of caste system in colonial India the theory that individual mobility across caste lines may have been minimal in India because it was ritualistic. They state that this may be because the colonial social stratification worked with the pre-existing ritual caste system.{{sfnp|Smelser|Lipset|2005|pp=8–15, 160–174}}

The emergence of a caste system in the modern form, during the early period of British colonial rule in the 18th and 19th century, was not uniform in South Asia. Claude Markovits, a French historian of colonial India, writes that Hindu society in north and west India (Sindh), in late 18th century and much of 19th century, lacked a proper caste system, their religious identities were fluid (a combination of Saivism, Vaisnavism, Sikhism), and the Brahmins were not the widespread priestly group (but the ''Bawas'' were).<ref>{{cite book | last=Markovits | first=Claude | title=The global world of Indian merchants, 1750–1947 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location=Cambridge | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-08940-1 | pages=48–49}}</ref> Markovits writes, "if religion was not a structuring factor, neither was caste" among the Hindu merchants group of northwest India.<ref>{{cite book | last=Markovits | first=Claude | title=The global world of Indian merchants, 1750–1947 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location=Cambridge | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-521-08940-1 | page=251}}</ref>

===Contemporary India===
[[File:Dharnaeithflag.jpg|thumb|The massive [[2006 Indian anti-reservation protests]]]]

====Caste politics====
{{Main|Caste politics| Mandal Commission}}
Societal stratification, and the inequality that comes with it, still exists in India,<ref name="lcweb2" /><ref name="ifad" /> and has been thoroughly criticised.<ref name="Gopal" /> Government policies aim at reducing this inequality by [[Reservation in India|reservation]], that is a quota system benefitting backward classes, but paradoxically also have created an incentive to keep this stratification alive according to sociologist [[Arvind Shah]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shah |first=A. M. |date=2007 |title=Caste in the 21st Century: From System to Elements |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=42 |issue=44 |pages=109–116 |jstor=40276753}}</ref> The Indian government officially recognises historically discriminated communities of India such as the untouchables under the designation of Scheduled Castes, and certain economically backward castes as [[Other Backward Class]].<ref name="Gosal">{{cite journal|last=Gosal|first=R. P. S.|date=September 1987|title=Distribution of scheduled caste population in India|journal=Social Science Information|volume=26|issue=3|pages=493–511|doi=10.1177/053901887026003002|s2cid=145669048}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities Volume 3|page=1277|publisher=Routledge|first=Carl|last=Skutsch|year=2005}}</ref>

Others, however, maintain that reservation on the basis of caste is necessary in order to prevent the monopolization of public sector jobs by members of the upper castes.<ref name="thewire.in">{{cite web |url=https://thewire.in/law/supreme-court-bench-reservation |title=Reservation Is About Adequate Representation, Not Poverty Eradication |website=The Wire|date=18 May 2020}}</ref> These individuals also point out that reservation in India is not aimed primarily at eradicating poverty, but at ensuring adequate representation of all caste groups.<ref name="thewire.in"/>

====Marriage====
{{Main|Inter-caste marriages in India}}
A majority of marriages in India are still endogamous with inter-caste and inter-religious marriages found mostly among those who are "economically, educationally, culturally advanced and urban oriented".<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.3138/jcfs.44.2.193|title=Exploring the Myth of Mixed Marriages in India: Evidence from a Nation-wide Survey|year=2013|last1=Goli|first1=Srinivas|last2=Singh|first2=Deepti|last3=Sekher|first3=T. V.|journal=Journal of Comparative Family Studies|volume=44|issue=2|pages=193–206|jstor=43613088}}</ref> A study in 2005 found that inter-caste marriages had nearly doubled between 1981 and 2005 but only reaching the level of 6.1%.

Opposition to intercaste marriage remains widespread, with Pew polling indicating that over 3 in 5 Indians agree that it is "very important" to stop both men and women from marrying outside of their castes.<ref name="pewresearch.org">{{cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/attitudes-about-caste/ |title=RELIGION IN INDIA: TOLERANCE AND SEGREGATION - 4. Attitudes about caste |website=Pew Research Center |date=29 June 2021}}</ref> The polling indicated, furthermore, that Christians and Buddhists were relatively more accepting of intercaste marriages compared to Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.<ref name="pewresearch.org"/> Honor killings related to disapproval of intercaste marriages remain frequent, with ''Outlook India'' noting, "Evidence, an NGO, revealed in November 2019 that as many as 195 known cases of honour killings were reported from Tamil Nadu alone in the past five years."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-love-in-the-crosshairs-honour-killings-still-continue-in-india/305349 |title=Love In The Crosshairs: Honour Killings Still Continue In India |website=Outlook|date=15 January 2022}}</ref>

The Government of India provides financial incentives to inter-caste couples under the Dr. Ambedkar Scheme for Social Integration through Inter-Caste Marriages. Various state governments such as those of Odisha, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra also have similar schemes.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/maharashtras-helping-hand-for-inter-caste-marriages/article25914302.ece |title=Maharashtra's helping hand for inter-caste marriages |work=The Hindu |date=4 January 2019|last1=Deshpande |first1=Alok }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thebetterindia.com/112460/inter-caste-marriage-incentives-financial-aid-government/ |title=₹50K to ₹5 Lakh: Here's How Much States Incentivise Inter-Caste Marriage |website=The Better India |date=18 August 2017}}</ref>

====Caste-related violence====
{{Main|Caste-related violence in India}}

Independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. According to a 2005 UN report, approximately 31,440 cases of violent acts committed against Dalits were reported in 1996.<ref>"[https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-report-slams-india-for-caste-discrimination-1.693195 UN report slams India for caste discrimination]". CBC News. 2 March 2007.</ref><ref name=undp1>{{Cite web|url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2004_dl_sheth.pdf|title=Caste, Ethnicity and Exclusion in South Asia: The Role of Affirmative Action Policies in Building Inclusive Societies}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}} The UN report claimed 1.33 cases of violent acts per 10,000 Dalit people. For context, the UN reported between 40 and 55 cases of violent acts per 10,000 people in developed countries in 2005.<ref>{{cite web|title=Crime statistics, 87 major countries|publisher=UN ODC|year=2007|url=http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/United-Nations-Surveys-on-Crime-Trends-and-the-Operations-of-Criminal-Justice-Systems.html}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Crimes and Crime Rates by Type of Offense: 1980 to 2009|publisher=Census – US|year=2010|url=https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0306.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020121607/http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0306.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=20 October 2011}}</ref> One example of such violence is the [[Khairlanji massacre]] of 2006.

The [[Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989]] of India aims to prevent and punish atrocities and discrimination against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Examples of crimes punishable under the Act include "forcing victims to eat or drink obnoxious substances; dumping excreta, sewage, carcasses into their homes or compounds; [[land grabbing]]; humiliation; sexual abuse". The [[National Crime Records Bureau]] includes statistics of crimes reported under the law as part of it annual reports.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://thewire.in/caste/ugly-reality-caste-violence-discrimination-urban-india |work=The Wire |date=11 December 2017 |first=Ashwini |last=Deshpande |title=The Ugly Reality of Caste Violence and Discrimination in Urban India}}</ref> There has been a growth in total number of crimes reported under the Act in recent years but conviction rates have been low. Crimes against members of Scheduled Caste communities grew by 7.3% and against Scheduled Tribes by 26.5% in 2019.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/ncrb-data-caste-violence-south-india-reveals-alarmingly-low-conviction-rates-110980 |title=NCRB data on caste violence in south India reveals alarmingly low conviction rates |date=22 October 2019 |work=The News Minute |first=Theja |last=Ram}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/crimes-against-scst-communities-rose-2019-142706 |title=Crimes against SC/ST communities rose in 2019 |date=3 February 2021 |work=The News Minute |agency=PTI}}</ref>

===Indian diaspora===
Caste persists within the [[Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin|Indian diaspora]]. For example, Dalit people in the [[United States]] report experiencing discrimination and violence.<ref>{{cite web|title=The US isn't safe from the trauma of caste bias|first=Tinku|last=Ray|publisher=[[WGBH (FM)|WGBH News]]|date=8 March 2019|url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-08/us-isn-t-safe-trauma-caste-bias|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200721033210/https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-08/us-isn-t-safe-trauma-caste-bias|archive-date=21 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Silicon Valley Has a Caste Discrimination Problem|first=David|last=Gilbert|publisher=[[Vice News]]|date=5 August 2020|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/silicon-valley-has-a-caste-discrimination-problem/}}</ref> In 2020 the [[California Department of Fair Employment and Housing]] initiated a lawsuit against [[Cisco]] and two of its employees for alleged discrimination against an Indian engineer because he was from a lower caste than them. According to a 2018 survey by civil rights group Equality Labs cited in the lawsuit, 67% of Dalits "reported being treated unfairly at their workplace because of their caste".<ref>{{cite web|title=California sues Cisco for alleged discrimination against employee because of caste |first=Rishi |last=Iyengar |publisher=[[CNN Business]] |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-discrimination/index.html |date=1 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=California sues Cisco over discrimination against dalit employee |publisher=[[The Week (Indian magazine)]] |url=https://www.theweek.in/news/biz-tech/2020/07/01/california-sues-cisco-over-discrimination-against-dalit-employee.html |date=1 July 2020}}</ref>

The [[Government of the United Kingdom]] ran a public consultation on ways to ensure legal protection against caste discrimination from March 2017 to September 2017. Based on the consultation the government decided that "the best way to provide the necessary protection against unlawful discrimination because of caste is by relying on emerging case law as developed by courts and tribunals".<ref>{{cite web|title=UK decides against separate law to counter caste discrimination in Indian community|publisher=[[Scroll.in]]|url=https://scroll.in/latest/887758/uk-decides-against-separate-law-to-counter-caste-discrimination-in-indian-community|date=24 July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Britain backs off anti-caste discrimination legislation|publisher=[[The Hindu Business Line]]|url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/world/britain-backs-off-anti-caste-discrimination-legislation/article24497401.ece|date=24 July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/caste-in-great-britain-and-equality-law-a-public-consulation|title=Caste in Great Britain and equality law: a public consultation|website=GOV.UK|date=28 March 2017 }}</ref>

==Affirmative action==
{{Main|Reservation in India}}
{{Politics of India}}
Article 15 of the [[Constitution of India]] prohibits discrimination based on caste and Article 17 declared the practice of untouchability to be illegal.<ref name="C2011">{{cite web|url=http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coi-english/coi-indexenglish.htm|title=Constitution of India|publisher=Ministry of Law, Government of India|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402064301/http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coi-english/coi-indexenglish.htm|archive-date=2 April 2012}}</ref> In 1955, India enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act (renamed in 1976, as the Protection of Civil Rights Act). It extended the reach of law, from intent to mandatory enforcement. The [[Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989|Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act]] was passed in India in 1989.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-16.htm|title=India: (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989; No. 33 of 1989|year=1989|publisher=Human Rights Watch}}</ref>
* The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was established to investigate, monitor, advise, and evaluate the socio-economic progress of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ncst.nic.in/index.asp?langid=1 |title=About NCST |year=2011 |publisher=Government of India |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114013721/http://ncst.nic.in/index.asp?langid=1 |archive-date=14 January 2012  }}</ref>
* A reservation system for people classified as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has existed for over 50 years. The presence of privately owned free market corporations in India is limited and public sector jobs have dominated the percentage of jobs in its economy. A 2000 report estimated that most jobs in India were in companies owned by the government or agencies of the government.<ref>Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1984, 84–85</ref> The reservation system implemented by India over 50 years, has been partly successful, because of all jobs, nationwide, in 1995, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by those in the lowest castes.{{citation needed|date=July 2014}}
* The Indian government classifies government jobs in four groups. The Group A jobs are senior most, high paying positions in the government, while Group D are junior most, lowest paying positions. In Group D jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% greater than their demographic percentage. In all jobs classified as Group C positions, the percentage of jobs held by lowest caste people is about the same as their demographic population distribution. In Group A and B jobs, the percentage of positions held by lowest caste classified people is 30% lower than their demographic percentage.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/sc/sts-fail-to-break-caste-ceiling-no-sc-in-149-top-government-officers-40-pc-do-menial-jobs/articleshow/16278743.cms|title=SC/STs fail to break caste ceiling: No SC in 149 top government officers, 40 pc do menial jobs|date=6 September 2012|newspaper=[[The Economic Times]]|last1=Varma|first1=Subodh}}</ref>
* The presence of lowest caste people in highest paying, senior-most position jobs in India has increased by ten-fold, from 1.18 percent of all jobs in 1959 to 10.12 percent of all jobs in 1995.<ref>"Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law", p. 257, by David Keane</ref>

===Recognition===
The Indian government officially recognises historically discriminated communities of India such as the untouchables under the designation of [[Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes]], and certain economically backward Shudra castes as [[Other Backward Class]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Deshpande |first=Ashwini |date=May 2015 |title=Chapter 12: Caste and diversity in India |url=https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/ |website=wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org |language=en |doi=10.4337/9781783478545.00021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The Scheduled Castes are sometimes referred to as Dalit in contemporary literature. In 2001, Dalits comprised 16.2 percent of India's total population.<ref name="censtat01">{{cite web|url=http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/India_at_glance/scst.aspx|title=Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes population: Census 2001|year=2004|publisher=Government of India}}</ref> Of the one billion Hindus in India, it is estimated that Hindu [[Forward caste]] comprises 26%, [[Other Backward Class]] comprises 43%, Hindu Scheduled Castes (Dalits) comprises 22% and Hindu Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) comprises 9%.<ref name="Sachar 2006">{{cite web|url=http://www.teindia.nic.in/Files/Reports/CCR/Sachar%20Committee%20Report.pdf|title=Sachar Committee Report (2004–2005)|last=Sachar|first=Rajinder|author-link=Rajinder Sachar|year=2006|publisher=Government of India|access-date=27 September 2008|page=6|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140402143832/http://www.teindia.nic.in/Files/Reports/CCR/Sachar%20Committee%20Report.pdf|archive-date=2 April 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In addition to taking affirmative action for people of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, India has expanded its effort to include people from poor, backward castes in its economic and social mainstream. In 1990, the government reservation of 27% for Backward Classes on the basis of the [[Mandal Commission]]'s recommendations. Since then, India has reserved 27 percent of job opportunities in government-owned enterprises and agencies for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs). The 27 percent reservation is in addition to 22.5 percent set aside for India's lowest castes for the last 50 years.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ncbc.nic.in/Pdf/annual.pdf|title=Annual Report, 2007–2008|year=2009|publisher=National Commission for Backward Classes, Government of India}}</ref>

===Mandal commission===
The Mandal Commission was established in 1979 to "identify the socially or educationally backward" and to consider the question of [[Reservation in India|seat reservations and quotas]] for people to redress caste discrimination.<ref name="Bhattacharya">Bhattacharya, Amit. {{cite web|url=http://www.theotherindia.org/caste/who-are-the-obcs.html|title=Who are the OBCs?|access-date=19 April 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627065912/http://www.theotherindia.org/caste/who-are-the-obcs.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archive-date=27 June 2006}} ''Times of India'', 8 April 2006.</ref> In 1980, the commission's report affirmed the [[affirmative action]] practice under Indian law, whereby additional members of lower castes—the other backward classes—were given exclusive access to another 27 percent of government jobs and slots in public universities, in addition to the 23 percent already reserved for the Dalits and Tribals. When [[V. P. Singh]]'s administration tried to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission in 1990, [[Mandal Commission protests of 1990|massive protests]] were held in the country. Many alleged that the politicians were trying to cash in on caste-based reservations for purely pragmatic electoral purposes.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}}

===Other Backward Classes (OBC)===
There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is lower than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070526112503/http://in.news.yahoo.com/060524/43/64i2a.html What is India's population of other backward classes?],''Yahoo News''.</ref>

The reservation system has led to widespread protests, such as the [[2006 Indian anti-reservation protests]], with many complaining of [[reverse discrimination]] against the Forward Castes (the castes that do not qualify for the reservation).{{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

In May 2011, the government approved a poverty, religion and caste census to identify poverty in different social backgrounds.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/caste-religion-poverty-census-gets-cabinet-nod-106959|title=Caste, religion, poverty census gets Cabinet nod|date=19 May 2011|publisher=NDTV|access-date=23 July 2014}}</ref> The census would also help the government to re-examine and possibly undo some of the policies which were formed in haste such as the Mandal Commission in order to bring more objectivity to the policies with respect to contemporary realities.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1718/17180910.htm|title=Caste and the Census|work=The Hindu|location=Chennai, India}}</ref> Critics of the reservation system believe that there is actually no social stigma at all associated with belonging to a backward caste and that because of the huge constitutional incentives in the form of educational and job reservations, a large number of people will falsely identify with a backward caste to receive the benefits. This would not only result in a marked inflation of the backward castes' numbers, but also lead to enormous administrative and judicial resources being devoted to social unrest and litigation when such dubious caste declarations are challenged.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/caste-in-doubt/619760/|title=Caste in doubt|date=17 May 2010|newspaper=Indian Express|access-date=20 January 2013}}</ref>

In 20th century India, the upper-class (''Ashraf'') Muslims dominated the government jobs and parliamentary representation. As a result, there have been campaigns to include the Muslim untouchable and lower castes among the groups eligible for [[reservation in India|affirmative action in India]] under ''SC and STs provision act''{{Hairspace}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/01-15Sep04-Print-Edition/011509200449.htm |title=On reservation for Muslims |author=Asghar Ali Engineer |work=The Milli Gazette |publisher=Pharos |access-date=1 September 2004 }}</ref> and have been given additional reservation based on the [[Sachar Committee]] report.

===Effects of government aid===
In a 2008 study, Desai et al. focussed on education attainments of children and young adults aged 6–29, from lowest caste and tribal populations of India. They completed a national survey of over 100,000 households for each of the four survey years between 1983 and 2000.<ref name="desai2008">{{cite journal|date=May 2008|title=Changing Educational Inequalities in India in the Context of Affirmative Action|journal=Demography|volume=45|issue=2|pages=245–270|doi=10.1353/dem.0.0001|pmc=2474466|pmid=18613480|author=Desai and Kulkarni}}</ref> They found a significant increase in lower caste children in their odds of completing primary school. The number of Dalit children who completed either middle-, high- or college-level education increased three times faster than the national average, and the total number were statistically same for both lower and upper castes. However, the same study found that in 2000, the percentage of Dalit males never enrolled in a school was still more than twice the percentage of upper caste males never enrolled in schools. Moreover, only 1.67% of Dalit females were college graduates compared to 9.09% of upper caste females. The number of Dalit girls in India who attended school doubled in the same period, but was still lower than the national average. Other poor caste groups as well as ethnic groups such as Muslims in India have also made improvements over the 16-year period, but their improvement lagged behind that of Dalits and Adivasis. The net percentage school attainment for Dalits and Muslims were statistically the same in 1999.

A 2007 nationwide survey of India by the [[World Bank]] found that over 80 percent of children of historically discriminated castes were attending schools. The fastest increase in school attendance by Dalit community children occurred during the recent periods of India's economic growth.<ref name="wb1">{{cite web|url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/2132853-1191444019328/21497941/SankarProgressinElementaryEducationusingNSS.pdf|title=What is the progress in elementary education participation in India during the last two decades?|last=Shankar|first=Deepa|year=2007|publisher=The World Bank}}</ref>

A study by Darshan Singh presents data on health and other indicators of socio-economic change in India's historically discriminated castes. He claims:<ref name="review1">{{cite journal|last=Singh |first=Darshan |year=2009 |title=Development of Scheduled Castes in India – A Review|url=http://www.nird.org.in/NIRD_Docs/OctLevel209.pdf |journal=Journal of Rural Development |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=529–542 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211051046/http://www.nird.org.in/NIRD_Docs/OctLevel209.pdf |archive-date=11 February 2014}}</ref>
* In 2001, the literacy rates in India's lowest castes was 55 percent, compared to a national average of 63 percent.
* The childhood vaccination levels in India's lowest castes was 40 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 44 percent.
* Access to drinking water within household or near the household in India's lowest castes was 80 percent in 2001, compared to a national average of 83 percent.
* The poverty level in India's lowest castes dropped from 49 percent to 39 percent between 1995 and 2005, compared to a national average change from 35 to 27 percent.

The life expectancy of various caste groups in modern India has been raised; but the [[International Institute for Population Sciences]] report suggests that poverty, not caste, is the bigger differentiation in life expectancy in modern India.<ref name="mr1">{{cite web|url=http://www.iipsindia.org/pdf/RB-13%20file%20for%20uploading.pdf|title=Life Expectancy at Birth Among Social and Economic Groups in India|date=November 2010|publisher=International Institute for Population Sciences|author=Mohanty and Ram|access-date=14 January 2012|archive-date=21 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200821152410/http://iipsindia.org/pdf/RB-13%20file%20for%20uploading.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Influence on other religions==
While identified with Hinduism, caste systems are found in other religions on the Indian subcontinent, including other religions such as Buddhists, Christians and Muslims.<ref name="barth">{{cite book |last=Barth |first=Fredrik |editor-first=E. R. |editor-last=Leach |title=Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon, and North-West Pakistan |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1971 |isbn=978-0-521-09664-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlU7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA113 |page=113}}</ref><ref name="mills40">{{cite book |title=Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism |first=Martin A. |last=Mills |year=2002 |pages=40–41 |isbn=978-0-7007-1470-4 |publisher=Routledge}}</ref><ref name="ballhatchet1998">{{cite book|title=Caste, Class and Catholicism in India 1789–1914 |first=Kenneth |last=Ballhatchet |year=1998 |publisher=Curzon |isbn=978-0-7007-1095-9}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2015}}

===Muslims===
{{Main|Caste system among South Asian Muslims}}

Caste system has been observed among Muslims in India.<ref name="barth" /> They practice [[endogamy]], [[hypergamy]], hereditary occupations, avoid social mixing and have been stratified.{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149}} There is some controversy<ref>{{cite journal |first=Imtiaz |last=Ahmad |date=13 May 1967 |jstor=4357934 |title=The Ashraf and Ajlaf Categories in Indo-Muslim Society |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=2 |issue=19 |pages=887–891 }}</ref> if these characteristics make them social groups or castes of Islam. Some scholars assert that the Muslim castes are not as acute in their discrimination as those of the Hindus,<ref>{{cite book |title=Muslim Communities of South Asia: Culture and Society |publisher=Vikas Publishing House |year=1976 |editor-last=Madan |editor-first=T. N. |page=114}}</ref> while critics assert that the discrimination in South Asian Muslim society is worse.<ref name="Ambedkar_Pakistan" />

From the earliest days of Islam's arrival in South Asia, Arab, Persian and Afghan Muslims have been recognised as an upper caste. Some upper caste Hindus who converted to Islam became part of the governing groups, who along with these foreign groups came to be known as ''Ashrafs'' (or nobles).{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|p=149}} Below them are the middle caste Muslims called ''Ajlafs'', and the lowest status Muslims of the ''Arzals''.{{sfnp|Chaudhary|2013|pp=149–150}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ahmad|first=Imtiaz|title=Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India|publisher=Manohar|year=1978 |pages=210–211}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter=Social Stratification Among Muslims in India |first=Zarina |last=Bhatty |title=Caste: Its Twentieth Century Avatar |editor-first=M. N. |editor-last=Srinivas |publisher=Viking |year=1996|pages=249–253}}</ref> Anti-caste activists like Ambedkar called the ''Arzal'' caste among Muslims as the equivalent of Hindu untouchables,<ref name="Ambedkar_Pakistan">{{Cite book|last=Ambedkar |first=Bhimrao |author-link=B. R. Ambedkar |title=Pakistan or the Partition of India |publisher=Thackers Publishers }}</ref> as did the British ethnographer [[Herbert Hope Risley]].<ref>{{cite book|author=H. H. Risley|author-link=H. H. Risley|title=Ethnographic Appendices, in GOI, Census of India, 1901 (see tables on Ajlaf and Arzal, and Risley discussion of these Muslim castes versus Hindu castes)|volume=1|publisher=Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing|year=1903|pages=45–62|isbn=978-1-246-03552-0 |url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/410.html}}</ref>

In [[Bengal]], some Muslims refer to the social stratification within their society as ''qaum'' (or Quoms),<ref name="barth" /> a term that is found among Muslims elsewhere in India, as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan. ''Qaums'' have patrilineal heredity, with ranked occupations and endogamy. Membership in a ''qaum'' is inherited by birth.<ref name="jamalmalik" /> Barth identifies the origin of the stratification from the historical segregation between ''pak'' (pure) and ''paleed'' (impure)—defined by the family's social or religious status, occupation and involvement in sexual crimes. There is history of skin color defining ''Pak''/''Paleed'', but that does not have historical roots, and was adopted by outsiders through analogy with the Hindu Caste system.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barth |first=Fredrik |title=Political Leadership among Swat Pathans |year=1995 |publisher=London School of Economics/Berg |isbn=978-0-485-19619-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/politicalleaders00bart/page/16 16–21] |url=https://archive.org/details/politicalleaders00bart/page/16 }}</ref>

Endogamy is very common in the form of arranged consanguineous marriages among Muslims in India and Pakistan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shami |last2=Grant |last3=Bittles |year=1994 |title=Consanguineous marriage within social/occupational class boundaries in Pakistan |journal=Journal of Biosocial Science |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=91–96 |doi=10.1017/s0021932000021088|pmid=8200883 |s2cid=26240331 }}</ref> Malik states that the lack of religious sanction makes ''qaum'' a "quasi-caste", and something that is found in Islam outside South Asia as well.<ref name="jamalmalik">{{cite book |last=Malik |first=Jamal |title=Islam in South Asia: A Short History |year=2008 |publisher=Brill Academic |isbn=978-90-04-16859-6 |pages=152–153}}</ref>

===Sikh===
The Sikh literature mentions ''Varna'' as ''Varan'', and ''Jati'' as ''Zat'' or ''Zat-biradari''. Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion and author of books on Sikhism, states that the ''Varan'' is described as a class system, while ''Zat'' has some caste system features in Sikh literature.<ref name="Nesbitt2005b">{{cite book |last=Nesbitt |first=Eleanor |title=Sikhism a very short introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-280601-7 |location=Oxford; New York |pages=116–117}}</ref> In theory, Sikh literature does not recognise caste hierarchy or differences, but, in practice, states Nesbitt, widespread endogamy practices among Sikhs have been prevalent in modern times, and poorer Sikhs of disadvantaged castes continue to gather in their own places of worship. Most Sikh families, writes Nesbitt, continue to check the caste of any prospective marriage partner for their children. She notes that all Gurus of Sikhs married within their ''Zat'', and they did not condemn or break with the convention of endogamous marriages for their own children or Sikhs in general.<ref name="Nesbitt2005c" />

Although the [[Sikh Gurus]] criticised the hierarchy of the caste system, one does exist in [[Sikh]] community. According to Sunrinder S, Jodhka, Sikhs belonging to the landowning dominant castes have not shed all their prejudices against the Dalits. While Dalits would be allowed entry into the village [[Gurdwara|gurudwaras]] they would not be permitted to cook or serve langar (the communal meal). Therefore, wherever they could mobilise resources, the Dalits of Punjab have tried to construct their own gurudwaras and other local level institutions in order to attain a certain degree of cultural autonomy.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jodhka |first=Surinder S. |title=Caste and Untouchability in Rural Punjab |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=11 May 2002 |volume=37 |issue=19 |page=1822 |jstor=4412102 }}</ref>

In 1953, the Government of India acceded to the demands of the Sikh leader, [[Tara Singh (activist)|Tara Singh]], to include Sikh castes of the converted untouchables in the list of scheduled castes. In the [[Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee]], 20 of the 140 seats are reserved for low-caste Sikhs.<ref name="apnaorg.com">{{Cite web |title=The Scheduled Castes in the Sikh Community – A Historical Perspective|url=http://apnaorg.com/research-papers/harish-puri/ |website=apnaorg.com}}</ref><ref name="Harish K. Puri 2004">{{cite book|title=Dalits in Regional Context |page=214 |first=Harish K. |last=Puri |isbn=978-81-7033-871-0 |year=2004|publisher=Rawat Publications }}</ref>

===Jains===
Caste system in [[Jainism]] has existed for centuries, primarily in terms of endogamy, although, per [[Paul Dundas]], in modern times the system does not play a significant role.<ref name="Dundas 2002 p.">{{cite book | last=Dundas | first=Paul | title=The Jains | publisher=Routledge | location=London; New York | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-415-26606-2 | pages=147–149}}</ref> This is contradicted by Carrithers and Humphreys who describe the major Jain castes in [[Rajasthan]] with their social rank.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Carrithers|first1=M|last2=Humphrey|first2=C|title=The assembly of listeners: Jains in society|date=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge UK|isbn=978-0-521-36505-5|page=46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LW8czr_HzzwC&q=jainism+caste+endogamy&pg=PR11}}</ref>

===Christians===
{{Main|Caste system among Indian Christians}}

Social stratification is found among the Christians in India based on caste as well as by their denomination and location. The caste distinction is based on their caste at the time that they or their ancestors converted to Christianity. Since the 16th century, they typically do not intermarry, and sit separately during prayers in Church.<ref name="britannica">[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christian-caste Christian Castes] Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref>

The earliest conception of caste among Indian Christians comes from Kerala, called [[Saint Thomas Christians]] (or "Syrian Christians"). [[Duncan B. Forrester|Duncan Forrester]] observes that "Nowhere else in India is there a large and ancient Christian community which has in time immemorial been accorded a high status in the caste hierarchy.&nbsp;... Syrian Christian community operates very much as a caste and is properly regarded as a caste or at least a very caste-like group." Amidst the Hindu society, the Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala had inserted themselves within the Indian caste society by the observance of caste rules and were regarded by the Hindus as a caste occupying a high place within their caste hierarchy.<ref name="Amaladass">{{cite book |last=Amaladass |first=Anand |title=Hindu-Christian dialogue: perspectives and encounters |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |year=1993 |isbn=978-81-208-1158-4 |editor-last=Coward |editor-first=Harold |pages=14–20 |chapter=Dialogue between Hindus and the St. Thomas Christians |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6eHgNyNimoAC |orig-year=1989}}</ref>{{sfnp|Bayly|2004|pp=243–253}}{{sfnp|Forrester|1980|pp=98, 102}} Their traditional belief that their ancestors were high-caste Hindus such as [[Nambudiri]]s and [[Nairs]], who were [[evangelism|evangelised]] by [[Thomas the Apostle|St. Thomas]], has also supported their upper-caste status.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fuller |first=Christopher J. |date=December 1977 |title=Indian Christians: Pollution and Origins |journal=Man |series=New |volume=12 |issue=3/4 |pages=528–529}}</ref> With the arrival of European missionaries and their evangelistic mission among the lower castes in Kerala, two new groups of Christians, the [[Latin Catholics of Malabar]] and Protestant [[Dalit Christian]]s, were formed but they continued to be considered as lower castes by higher ranked communities, including the Saint Thomas Christians.<ref name="Amaladass" />{{better source needed|date=December 2023}}

{| class="wikitable sortable" width:45%; text-align:center;" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px"
|- style="background: #E9E9E9"
|+ Table 1. Distribution of Population by Religion and Caste Categories<ref name="Sachar 2006" />
! Religion/Caste !! [[Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes|SCs]] !! [[Adivasi|STs]] !! [[Other Backward Class|OBCs]] !! [[Forward Caste|Forward Caste/Others]]
|-
| [[Hinduism]] || 22.2% || 9% || 42.8% || 26%
|-
| [[Islam]] || 0.8% || 0.5% || 39.2% || 59.5%
|-
| [[Christianity]] || 9.0% || 32.8% || 24.8% || 33.3%
|-
| [[Sikhism]] || 30.7% || 0.9% || 22.4% || 46.1%
|-
| [[Jainism]] || 0.0% || 2.6% || 3.0% || 94.3%
|-
| [[Buddhism]] || 89.5% || 7.4% || 0.4% || 2.7%
|-
| [[Zoroastrianism]] || 0.0% || 15.9% || 13.7% || 70.4%
|-
| Others || 2.6% || 82.5% || 6.25 || 8.7%
|-
| '''Total''' || '''19.7%''' || '''8.5%''' || '''41.1%''' || '''30.8%'''
|}

===Distribution===
Table 1 is the distribution of population of each Religion by Caste Categories, obtained from merged sample of Schedule 1 and Schedule 10 of available data from the [[Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation|National Sample Survey Organisation]] 55th (1999–2000) and 61st Rounds (2004–05) Round Survey.<ref name="Sachar 2006"/> The [[Other Backward Class]] (OBCs) were found to comprise 52% of the country's population by the [[Mandal Commission]] report of 1980, a figure which had shrunk to 41% by 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation's survey took place.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/obcs-form-41-of-population-survey/articleshow/2328117.cms|title=OBCs form 41% of population: Survey &#124; India News - Times of India|website=The Times of India|date=September 2007 }}</ref>

==Criticism==
<!-- {{Main|Criticism of the Indian caste system}} -->
There has been criticism of the caste system from both within and outside of India.<ref>[http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html India's caste system discriminates] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420014042/http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html |date=20 April 2006 }}.</ref> Since the 1980s, caste has become a major controversy in the [[politics of India]].<ref name="caste_aditya_nigam">{{cite web|title=Caste Politics in India |author=Aditya Nigam |url=http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/castepolitics_india.htm |access-date=11 December 2006 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050828053452/http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/Journal/castepolitics_india.htm |archive-date=28 August 2005 }}</ref>

===Indian social reformers===
[[File:Hindu children of high caste, Bombay, India.jpg|thumb|A 1922 stereograph of Hindu children of high caste, Bombay. This was part of Underwood & Underwood stereoscope journey of colonial world. This and related collections became controversial for staging extreme effects and constructing identities of various colonised nations. Christopher Pinney remarks such imaging was a part of surveillance and imposed identities upon Indians that were resented.<ref>{{cite news |title=Visual history tells us about repressed histories |first=Trisha |last=Gupta |date=20 September 2008 |work=Tehelka |url=http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=hub200908Visualhistory.asp |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120911095309/http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=hub200908Visualhistory.asp |url-status=dead |archive-date=11 September 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs |first=Christopher |last=Pinney |year=1998|isbn=978-0-226-66866-6 |publisher=University Of Chicago Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Face of China: Photography's Role in Shaping Image, 1860–1920 |journal=Getty Research Journal |first=Sarah |last=Fraser |volume=2 |issue=2 |year=2010 |pages=39–52|doi=10.1086/grj.2.23005407 |s2cid=192880526 }}</ref>]]
The caste system has been criticised by many Indian social reformers.

====Basava====
[[Basava]] (1105–1167) championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship and rituals, and replaced it with personalised direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga. This approach brought Shiva's presence to everyone and at all times, without gender, class or caste discrimination. His teachings and verses such as Káyakavé Kailása (Work is the path to Kailash (bliss, heaven), or Work is Worship) became popular.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Michael |first1=R. Blake |date=December 1982 |title=Work as Worship in Vīraśaiva Tradition |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=50 |number=4 |pages=605–606 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/L.4.605 |jstor=1462945 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1462945|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

====Jyotirao Phule====
[[Jyotirao Phule]] (1827–1890) vehemently criticised any explanations that the caste system was natural and ordained by the ''Creator'' in Hindu texts. If ''Brahma'' wanted castes, argued Phule, he would have ordained the same for other creatures. There are no castes in species of animals or birds, so why should there be one among human animals.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} In his criticism Phule added, "Brahmins cannot claim superior status because of caste, because they hardly bothered with these when wining and dining with Europeans."{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} Professions did not make castes, and castes did not decide one's profession. If someone does a job that is dirty, it does not make them inferior; in the same way that no mother is inferior because she cleans the excreta of her baby. Ritual occupation or tasks, argued Phule, do not make any human being superior or inferior.<ref>{{cite book|title=Indian Political Thought: Themes and Thinkers|author=Singh and Roy|publisher=Pearson|year=2011|pages=82–90|isbn=978-81-317-5851-9}}</ref>

====Vivekananda====
[[Swami Vivekananda|Vivekananda]] similarly criticised caste as one of the many human institutions that bars the power of free thought and action of an individual. Caste or no caste, creed or no creed, any man, or class, or caste, or nation, or institution that bars the power of free thought and bars action of an individual is devilish, and must go down. Liberty of thought and action, asserted Vivekananda, is the only condition of life, of growth and of well-being.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (8 vols., Calcutta)|year=1952|author=Swami Vivekananda|volume=V|pages=25–30|publisher=Advaita Ashrama |isbn=978-81-85301-46-4}}</ref>

====B. R. Ambedkar====
[[B. R. Ambedkar]], who was born in a caste classified as untouchable, became a leader of human rights campaigns in India, a prolific writer, and a key person in drafting modern India's constitution in the 1940s. He wrote extensively on discrimination, trauma and what he saw as the tragic effects of the caste system in India.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} He believed that the caste system originated in the practice of endogamy and that it spread through imitation by other groups. He wrote that initially, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras existed as classes whose choice of occupation was not restricted by birth and in which exogamy was prevalent. Brahmins then began to practise endogamy and enclosed themselves, hence Ambedkar defines caste as "enclosed class". He believed that traditions such as [[sati (practice)|sati]], enforced widowhood and child marriage developed from the need to reinforce endogamy and Shastras were used to glorify these practices so that they are observed without being questioned. Later, other caste groups imitated these customs. However, although Ambedkar uses the approach of psychologist Gabriel Tarde to indicate how the caste system spread, he also explains that Brahmins or Manu cannot be blamed for the origin of the caste system and discredits theories that trace the origin of the caste system in races.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_castes.html|title=Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis, and Development|last=Ambedkar|first=Dr. B. R.|editor-last=Pritchett|editor-first=Frances|website=www.columbia.edu}}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=November 2017}}

====KK Sarachandra Bose====
[[File:KK-Sarachandra-Bose.jpg|thumb|upright|Activist KK Sarachandra Bose]]
In 2014 KK Sarachandra Bose went on a 40-day ''Bharat Yatra'' (Indian journey) of almost {{convert|14000|km|mi}} from [[Thiruvananthapuram]] to [[Delhi]] along with over 30 volunteers to campaign for the end of the caste system.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Activist Sarachandra on tour against caste system in country|date=21 June 2014|url=https://www.dailypioneer.com/2014/state-editions/activist-sarachandra-on-tour-against-caste-system-in-country.html|access-date=2 August 2021|website=[[The Pioneer (India)|The Pioneer]]|language=en}}</ref> Bose also believes that using the term 'caste' conflicts with the 1948 UN [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dubai-based lawyer on mission to eradicate India's caste system|url=https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/dubai-based-lawyer-on-mission-to-eradicate-indias-caste-system-1.1349292|date=19 June 2014|access-date=2 August 2021|website=[[Gulf News]]|language=en|first=Pamela|last=Raghunath}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Dubai lawyer's India tour against casteism reaches Odisha|url=https://archive.siasat.com/news/dubai-lawyers-india-tour-against-casteism-reaches-odisha-600686/|access-date=2 August 2021|date=25 June 2014|language=en-US|website=[[The Siasat Daily]]}}</ref> He urged the [[government of India]] for [[Constitutional amendment|constitutional reform]] to remove all references to the caste system by December 2014.<ref>{{Cite web|date=26 June 2014|title=NRI activist wants Centre to banish caste system|url=https://www.news18.com/news/india/nri-activist-wants-centre-to-banish-caste-system-697862.html|access-date=2 August 2021|website=[[News18 India]]|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=NRI on 'Bharat Yatra' Comes Calling|url=https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2014/jun/12/nri-on-bharat-yatra-comes-calling-623947.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029025524/https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2014/jun/12/NRI-on-Bharat-Yatra-Comes-Calling-623947.html|date=12 June 2014|archive-date=29 October 2020|access-date=2 August 2021|website=[[The New Indian Express]]}}</ref>

==Caste politics==
{{See also|Caste politics}}
Many political parties in India have indulged in caste-based [[votebank]] politics. Parties such as [[Bahujan Samaj Party]] (BSP), the [[Samajwadi Party]] and the [[Janata Dal]] claim that they are representing the backward castes, and rely on OBC support, often in alliance with Dalit and Muslim support, to win elections.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/india/116.htm|title=Caste-Based Parties|publisher=Country Studies US|access-date=12 December 2006}}</ref> On the other hand, the Hindu right has also at times courted controversy over its own caste-based appeals, for example in 2020 when [[Bharatiya Janata Party|BJP]] MP (Member of Parliament) [[Pragya Singh Thakur]] came under fire for comments she made about [[Shudra]]s during an address to a caste body called the 'Kshatriya Mahasabha'.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thewire.in/caste/pragya-singh-thakur-shudras-ignorant|title=Shudras 'Feel Bad' About Being Called Shudras Because They Are 'Ignorant': BJP's Pragya Thakur|publisher=The Wire|access-date=7 January 2023}}</ref>

==Economic inequality==
A 1995 study notes that the caste system in India is a system of exploitation of poor low-ranking groups by more prosperous high-ranking groups.<ref name="lcweb2">[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/intoc.html India&nbsp;– A Country Study, US Library of Congress, 1995, Chapter 5].</ref> A report published in 2001 note that in India 36.3% of people own no land at all, 60.6% own about 15% of the land, with a very wealthy 3.1% owning 15% of the land.<ref name="ifad">[http://www.ifad.org/poverty/chapter3.pdf Rural Poverty Report 2001 – The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924033221/http://www.ifad.org/poverty/chapter3.pdf |date=24 September 2015 }}, Chapter 3, p.&nbsp;77. IFAD, 2001.</ref> Haque also reports that over 90 percent of both scheduled castes (low-ranking groups) and all other castes (high-ranking groups) either do not own land or own land area capable of producing less than $1000 per year of food and income per household. However, over 99 percent of India's farms are less than 10 hectares, and 99.9 percent of the farms are less than 20 hectares, regardless of the farmer or landowner's caste. Indian government has, in addition, vigorously pursued agricultural land ceiling laws which prohibit anyone from owning land greater than mandated limits. India has used this law to forcibly acquire land from some, then redistribute tens of millions of acres to the landless and poor of the low-caste. Haque suggests that Indian lawmakers need to reform and modernise the nation's land laws and rely less on blind adherence to land ceilings and tenancy reform.<ref>{{cite web|title=Improving land access to India's rural poor|author=Hanstad|publisher=The World Bank|year=2005|url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Hanstad.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Improving the Rural Poors' Acces tp Land in India|author=Haque|publisher=DARPG, Government of India|year=2006|url=https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vxY1IPEXqzAJ:indiagovernance.gov.in/download.php%3Ffilename%3Dfiles/improving-rural-poor-access-to-land-t-haque.pdf+IMPROVING+THE+RURAL+POORS’+ACCESS+TO+LAND+IN+INDIA&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESidX9QY5wysZgM5_jhc4UmHrhL5HbDo2OqqV7M1-f6tGCWkDktMCC3ukXgu7vitDprhfsbzorTjIy2TcwPJ8OG3rNozW939xqne-Cq0XGO_7aC_-vlFtdZSzWENCUQgziiO_bk6&sig=AHIEtbSF9z4Tlo5TR6OBVX2pdAC-JS7LLQ}}</ref>

In a 2011 study, Aiyar also notes that such qualitative theories of economic exploitation and consequent land redistribution within India between 1950 and 1990 had no effect on the quality of life and poverty reduction. Instead, economic reforms since the 1990s and resultant opportunities for non-agricultural jobs have reduced poverty and increased per capita income for all segments of Indian society.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Elephant That Became a Tiger, 20 Years of Economic Reform in India |first=Swaminathan S. Anklesaria |last=Aiyar |date=July 2011 |url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/dpa/dpa13.pdf}}</ref> For specific evidence, Aiyar mentions the following: {{blockquote|Critics believe that the economic liberalisation has benefited just a small elite and left behind the poor, especially the lowest Hindu caste of dalits. But a recent authoritative survey revealed striking improvements in living standards of dalits in the last two decades. Television ownership was up from zero to 45 percent; cellphone ownership up from zero to 36 percent; two-wheeler ownership (of motorcycles, scooters, mopeds) up from zero to 12.3 percent; children eating yesterday's leftovers down from 95.9 percent to 16.2 percent&nbsp;... Dalits running their own businesses up from 6 percent to 37 percent; and proportion working as agricultural labourers down from 46.1 percent to 20.5 percent.}}

Cassan has studied the differential effect within two segments of India's Dalit community. He finds India's overall economic growth has produced the fastest and more significant socio-economic changes. Cassan further concludes that legal and social program initiatives are no longer India's primary constraint in further advancement of India's historically discriminated castes; further advancement are likely to come from improvements in the supply of quality schools in rural and urban India, along with India's economic growth.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Impact of Positive Discrimination in Education in India: Evidence from a Natural Experiment |first=Guilhem |last=Cassan |publisher=Paris School of Economics and Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee |date=September 2011 |url=http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.com/cassan-guilhem/stuff/area_restriction_removal.pdf}}</ref>

==Apartheid and discrimination==
The maltreatment of Dalits in India has been described by [[Anand Teltumbde]], Gopal Guru and others as "India's hidden apartheid".<ref name="Gopal">Gopal Guru, with Shiraz Sidhva. [http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_09/uk/doss22.htm India's "hidden apartheid"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070111213049/http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_09/uk/doss22.htm |date=11 January 2007 }}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |isbn=978-1-84813-448-5|title=The Persistence of Caste: India's Hidden Apartheid and the Khairlanji Murders|last1=Teltumbde|first1=Anand|year=2010|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref><ref name=hav1>William A. Haviland, ''Anthropology: The Human Challenge'', 13th edition, Thomson Wadsworth, 2010, {{ISBN|978-0-495-81084-1}}, p. 536 (see note 9).</ref> Critics of the accusations point to substantial improvements in the position of Dalits in post-independence India, consequent to the strict implementation of the rights and privileges enshrined in the Constitution of India, as implemented by the Protection of Civil rights Act, 1955.<ref>The Constitution of India by P.M. Bakshi, Universal Law Publishing Co, {{ISBN|81-7534-500-4}}.</ref> They also argue that the practice has disappeared in urban public life.{{sfnp|Mendelsohn|Vicziany|1998|p={{Page needed|date=September 2010}}}}

Recent research by Naveen Bharathi, Deepak Malghan and Andaleeb Rahman found that "the extent of intra-village segregation in Karnataka is greater than the local black-white segregation in the American South that continues to influence residential patterns to this day." They claim that this finding agrees with previous ethnographic research that found that residential space in rural India is segregated along caste lines.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://casi.sas.upenn.edu/iit/bharathi-malghan-rahman|title=How Wide is the "Sink of Localism" in India?|date=22 November 2020|website=Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI)}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.0435-3684.1999.00046.x |title=Hindu cosmology and the orinetation and segregation of social groups in villages in Northwestern India |date=2003 |last1=Singh |first1=Jai Pal |last2=Khan |first2=Mumtaz |journal=Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography |volume=81 |pages=19–39 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0435-3684.1999.00046.x|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/00045605209352092 |title=Rural Settlement types in the Uttar Pradesh (United Provinces of Agra and Oudh) |date=2008 |last1=Ahmad |first1=Enayat |journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=223–246 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045605209352092|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

An investigation by [[The Wire (India)|The Wire]] and the [[Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting]] found that the prison manuals in multiple states had not been updated since the British Raj and were being used to enforce a caste based segregation of labour within prisons.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/segregation-labour-manus-caste-law-governs-indian-prison-system |title=From Segregation to Labour, Manu's Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System |last=Sukanya |first=Shanta |date=December 10, 2020}}</ref> The [[Supreme Court of India]] ruled in October 2024 that such practices were a violation of [[Article 15 of the Constitution of India]]. It took note of specific rules in prison manuals of several states that enable such practices and struck them down.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Roy |first1=Debayan |title=Supreme Court strikes down rules enabling caste discrimination in prisons |url=https://www.barandbench.com/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-rules-caste-discrimination-prisons |website=Bar and Bench |date=3 October 2024 |access-date=3 October 2024}}</ref>

Sociologists Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman and Angela Bodino,<!-- are there sociologists closer to the issue, such as any from India whose insight can be noted? --> while critical of caste system, conclude that modern India does not practice [[social apartheid|apartheid]] since there is no state-sanctioned discrimination.<ref name="Reilley et al.">Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman, Angela Bodino, Racism: A Global Reader P21, M.E. Sharpe, 2003 {{ISBN|0-7656-1060-4}}.</ref> They write that casteism in India is presently "not apartheid. In fact, untouchables, as well as tribal people and members of the lowest castes in India benefit from broad affirmative action programmes and are enjoying greater political power."<ref>[http://www.leftjustified.com/leftjust/lib/sc/ht/wtp/india.html Excerpts from The Constitution of India<!-- Bot generated title -->].</ref>

A hypothesis that caste amounts to race has been rejected by some scholars.<ref name="npr">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010828.caste.html |title=An Untouchable Subject? |publisher=Npr.org |date=29 August 2001 |access-date=20 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=B. R. |last=Ambedkar |title=The Annihilation of Caste |page=49 |series=Writings and Speeches |volume=1 |publisher=Education Department, Government of Maharashtra |year=1979|title-link=The Annihilation of Caste }}</ref>{{sfnp|Beteille|2001}} Ambedkar, for example, wrote that "The [[Brahmin]] of Punjab is racially of the same stock as the [[Chamar]] of Punjab. The Caste system does not demarcate racial division. The Caste system is a social division of people of the same race."<ref>{{cite book |first=B. R. |last=Ambedkar |title=The Annihilation of Caste |chapter=5. Caste cannot preserve a nonexistent "racial purity" |title-link=The Annihilation of Caste }}</ref> Various sociologists, anthropologists and historians have rejected the racial origins and racial emphasis of caste and consider the idea to be one that has purely political and economic undertones. Beteille writes that "the Scheduled Castes of India taken together are no more a race than are the Brahmins taken together. Every social group cannot be regarded as a race simply because we want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination",{{sfnp|Beteille|2001}} and that the 2001 Durban conference on racism hosted by the U.N. is "turning its back on established scientific opinion".{{sfnp|Beteille|2001}}{{Better source needed|date=May 2019}}<!-- This is not a properly attributed quote. The provided citation links to an excerpt of the Constitution of India. It does not back up the provided quote by Beteille. -->

==In popular culture==

=== In literature ===
[[Mulk Raj Anand]]'s debut novel, ''[[Untouchable (novel)|Untouchable]]'' (1935), is based on the theme of untouchability. The debut novel of [[Arundhati Roy]], ''[[The God of Small Things]]'' (1997), also has themes surrounding the caste system across religions. A lawyer named Sabu Thomas filed a petition to have the book published without the last chapter, which had graphic description of sexual acts between members of different castes.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Thomas claimed the alleged obscenity in the last chapter deeply hurts the Syrian Christian community, the basis of the novel.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Iype |first=George |title=Obscenity case slammed against Arundhati Roy |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/aug/07arun.htm |access-date=10 May 2019 |website=www.rediff.com}}</ref>

=== In film ===
{{See also|Category:Films about the caste system in India}}
The Hindi film ''[[Achhut Kannya]]'' (''Untouchable Maiden'', 1936), starring [[Ashok Kumar]] and [[Devika Rani]], was an early reformist film.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chaudhuri |first1=Diptakirti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QbNVEAAAQBAJ |title=The Bollywood pocketbook of iconic dates |date=2022 |publisher=Hachette India |isbn=9789391028343 |location=Gurgaon |pages=Chapter 5 |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref> Since then, there are a variety of films focusing on caste discrimination and the depiction of inter-caste relations, such as [[Sujata (1959 film)|''Sujata'' (1959)]] and ''[[Ankur (film)|Ankur]]'' (1974).<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Amarjit |first=Singh |date=2021 |title=Caste and Cinema: A Sociological Analysis of Caste Representation in Indian Cinema |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350955675 |journal=International Journal of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Science |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=39–45 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref> The largest swell of caste-focused films with lower-caste representation occurred from the 1960s until 1990, during the peak of [[parallel cinema]]. However, since the 1990s, there is a substantial disparity in caste representation in film due to the rise of upper-caste protagonists, casting, and participation in the industry. This can be traced to the beginning of the film industry, which was pioneered by a Brahmin, [[Dadasaheb Phalke]]; since then, while Dalits tried to enter the industry, they were often cast in side roles or as villains.<ref name=":0" />

In the 21st century, there are several critically acclaimed regional films known for strong caste representation. ''[[Sairat]]'' (2016) and ''[[Fandry]]'' (2013) are both Marathi-language films about inter-caste romance and discrimination and are respected for their Dalit direction and honest depiction of lower-caste experiences.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Edachira |first=Manju |date=2020 |title=Anti-caste Aesthetics and Dalit Interventions in Indian Cinema |url=https://www.academia.edu/44130326 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=55 |issue=38 |pages=47–53 |via=academia.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kumar |first=Akshaya |date=2021 |title=Re-Visioning Caste in Indian Cinema |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/836709/pdf |journal=Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal |volume=104 |issue=4 |pages=362–391 |doi=10.5325/soundings.104.4.0362 |s2cid=243971704 |via=Project Muse|url-access=subscription }}</ref>  ''[[Pariyerum Perumal]]'' (2018) is a Tamil film on caste violence, and ''[[Kabali]]'' (2016) is an action film starring [[Rajinikanth]], both directed by Dalit filmmaker [[Pa. Ranjith]].<ref name=":1" />

Unlike regional films, Hindi films are still dominated by upper-caste filmmakers and stories, even when they attempt to discuss caste discrimination. ''[[Article 15 (film)|Article 15]]'' (2019) is a crime thriller that stars a Brahmin hero who helps Dalit villagers by investigating the murder of two Dalit girls, and works to erase caste discrimination in the police system. It was a box-office hit but is criticized for its upper-caste casting and victimization of Dalits.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pal |first1=Bidisha |last2=Bhattacharjee |first2=Partha |last3=Tripathi |first3=Priyanka |date=2021 |title=Gendered and Casteist Body: Cast(e)ing and Castigating the Female Body in select Bollywood Films |url=https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2675&context=jiws |journal=Journal of International Women's Studies |volume=22 |issue=10 |pages=57–67 |via=Virtual Commons}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Article 15 (film)|Article 15]]
* [[Inter-caste marriages in India]]
* [[Balinese caste system]]
* [[Caste systems in Africa]]
* [[Caste system in Sri Lanka]]
* [[Caste discrimination in the United States]]
* [[Manual scavenging]] – a caste-based activity in India, officially abolished but still ongoing
* [[Social class in Cambodia]]
* [[Gadjo]]
* [[Caste Census]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
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{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|last=Ahmed|first=Imtiaz|title=Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India|publisher=Manohar|year=1978|isbn=978-0-8364-0050-2|url=https://archive.org/details/castesocialstrat0000ahma}}
* {{cite book|last=Ambedkar|first=Bhimrao|author-link=B. R. Ambedkar|title=Pakistan or the Partition of India|publisher=AMS Press|year=1945|isbn=978-0-404-54801-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Anthony|first=David W.|year=2007|title=The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World|publisher=Princeton University Press}}
* {{cite book|last=Ansari|first=Ghaus|title=Muslim Caste in Uttar Pradesh: A Study of Culture Contact|publisher=Ethnographic and Folk Cultural Society|year=1960|asin=B001I50VJG}}
* {{cite book|first=Christopher|last=Bayly|author-link=Christopher Alan Bayly|title=Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870|url=https://archive.org/details/rulerstownsmenba0000bayl|url-access=registration|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1983|isbn=9780521229326}}
* Anand A. Yang, Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in Bihar, [[University of California Press]], 1999.
* Acharya [[Hazari Prasad Dwivedi]] Rachnawali, Rajkamal Prakashan, [[Delhi]].
* [[Arvind Narayan Das]], Agrarian movements in India : studies on 20th century Bihar (Library of Peasant Studies), Routledge, [[London]], 1982.
* Atal, Yogesh (1968) "The Changing Frontiers of Caste" Delhi, National Publishing House.
* Atal, Yogesh (2006) "Changing Indian Society" Chapter on Varna and Jati. Jaipur, Rawat Publications.
* {{cite book|last=Béteille|first=André|author-link=Andre Beteille|title=Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village|publisher=University of California Press|year=1965|isbn=978-0-520-02053-5}}
* Duiker/Spielvogel. ''The Essential World History Vol I: to 1800''. 2nd Edition 2005.
* [[Duncan B. Forrester|Forrester, Duncan B.]], 'Indian Christians' Attitudes to Caste in the Nineteenth Century,' in ''Indian Church History Review'' 8, no. 2 (1974): 131–147.
* [[Duncan B. Forrester|Forrester, Duncan B.]], 'Christian Theology in a Hindu Context,' in ''South Asian Review'' 8, no. 4 (1975): 343–358.
* [[Duncan B. Forrester|Forrester, Duncan B.]], 'Indian Christians' Attitudes to Caste in the Twentieth Century,' in ''Indian Church History Review'' 9, no. 1 (1975): 3–22.
* Fárek, M., Jalki, D., Pathan, S., & Shah, P. (2017). Western Foundations of the Caste System. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
* {{cite book|last=Gupta|first=Dipankar|author-link=Dipankar Gupta|title=Caste in Question: Identity or Hierarchy?|publisher=Sage Publications|year=2004|isbn=978-0-7619-3324-3}}
* {{cite book|last=Ghurye|first=G. S.|author-link=G. S. Ghurye|year=1961|title=Caste, Class and Occupation|url=https://archive.org/details/casteclassoccupa0000ghur|url-access=registration|publisher=Popular Book Depot, Bombay}}
* Jain, Meenakshi, Congress Party, 1967–77: Role of Caste in Indian Politics (Vikas, 1991), {{ISBN|0-7069-5319-3|}}.
* {{cite book|first=Christophe|last=Jaffrelot|author-link=Christophe Jaffrelot|year=2003|title=India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes|publisher=C. Hurst & Co.}}
* {{Cite journal|title='A Fist Is Stronger than Five Fingers': Caste and Dominance in Rural North India|first=Craig|last=Jeffrey|journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers|series=New Series|volume=26|year=2001|pages=217–236|jstor=3650669|issue=2|doi=10.1111/1475-5661.00016|bibcode=2001TrIBG..26..217J }}
* {{cite book|first=Shridhar Venkatesh|last=Ketkar|title=The History of Caste in India: Evidence of the Laws of Manu on the Social Conditions in India During the 3rd Century A.D., Interpreted and Examined|publisher=Rawat Publications|year=1979|orig-year=1909|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kFUoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP1|lccn=79912160}}
* {{cite book|first=Pandurang Vaman|last=Kane|author-link=Pandurang Vaman Kane|title=History of Dharmasastra: (ancient and mediaeval, religious and civil law)|publisher=Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute|year=1962–1975}}
* {{cite book|first=K. S.|last=Lal|author-link=K. S. Lal|title=Growth of Scheduled Tribes and Castes in Medieval India|year=1995}}
* {{citation |last=Lee |first=Alexander |title=From Hierarchy to Ethnicity: The Politics of Caste in Twentieth-Century India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzQTEAAAQBAJ |year=2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-48990-4}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |first=T. N. |last=Madan |author-link=Triloki Nath Madan |title=Caste |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/98395/caste |access-date=15 February 2013}}
* Murray Milner Jr. (1994). ''Status and Sacredness: A General Theory of Status Relations and an Analysis of Indian Culture'', New York: Oxford University Press.
* {{cite book|last=Michaels|first=Axel|title=Hinduism: Past and Present|pages=188–197|publisher=Princeton|year=2004|isbn=978-0-691-08953-9}}
* {{cite journal|title=The Caste System of India|first=Mason|last=Olcott|journal=American Sociological Review|volume=9|date=December 1944|pages=648–657|jstor=2085128|issue=6|doi=10.2307/2085128}}
* {{cite book|first=Robin J.|last=Moore|title=Sir Charles Wood's Indian Policy 1853–66|publisher=Manchester University Press}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Raj|first1=Papia|first2=Aditya|last2=Raj|year=2004|title=Caste Variation in Reproductive Health of Women in Eastern Region of India: A Study Based on NFHS Data|journal=Sociological Bulletin|volume=53|issue=3|pages=326–346|doi=10.1177/0038022920040302|s2cid=157709103}}
* Ranganayakamma (2001). ''For the solution of the "Caste" question, Buddha is not enough, Ambedkar is not enough either, Marx is a must'', Hyderabad : Sweet Home Publications.
* 
* Rosas, Paul, "Caste and Class in India," ''Science and Society,'' vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1943), pp.&nbsp;141–167. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40399524 In JSTOR].
* {{cite book|last=Srinivas|first=Mysore N.|title=Caste in Modern India and Other Essays|publisher=Asia Publishing House|year=1994|orig-year=1962|author-link=M. N. Srinivas}}
* {{cite book|first=Mysore N.|last=Srinivas|author-link=M. N. Srinivas|title=Social Change in Modern India|publisher=Orient Longman|year=1995}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Bapuji|first1=Hari|last2=Chrispal|first2=Snehanjali|last3=Attri|first3=Pardeep Singh|last4=Ertug|first4=Gokhan|last5=Soundararajan|first5=Vivek|title=An Integrative Review of Management Research on Caste: Broadening Our Horizons|journal=Academy of Management Annals|volume=18|issue=2|year=2024|pages=506–549|doi=10.5465/annals.2022.0208|url=https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/annals.2022.0208|url-access=subscription}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Indian caste system}}
* [https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/india0207/ Hidden Apartheid Caste Discrimination against India's "Untouchables"]

{{Reservation in India}}
{{Social issues in India}}
{{Discrimination}} 
{{Social class}}
{{Asia in topic|Caste system in}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caste System In India}}
[[Category:Caste system in India| ]]
[[Category:Social class in India| ]]
[[Category:Human rights by issue]]
[[Category:Discrimination in India]]
[[Category:Modern human genetic history]]