Many Indians believe that the caste system no longer operates in India. It has been illegal for decades and new, progressive ideas about life-chances and employment have taken over. But a close examination of the data tells a different story. Caste is alive in India but it has taken a new form argues Ashwini Desphpande.

The year was 1936. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar, two titans of the Indian nationalist movement and leaders of the Congress Party were engaged in a debate over the nature of the caste system. Gandhi wrote: “The law of varna teaches us that we have each one of us to earn our bread by following the ancestral calling.’ Ambedkar wrote a sharp rejoinder and asked: “Must a man follow his ancestral calling even if it does not suit his capacities, even when it has ceased to be profitable? Must a man live by his ancestral calling even if he finds it immoral…[it] is not only an impossible and impractical ideal, but it is also a morally indefensible ideal.”