Has caste lost its relevance in understanding the multi-cultural Indian Society? Elaborate your answer with illustrations.
Approach · directive: “elaborate”
What it asks · Take a stand on whether caste still helps explain India's multicultural society, with illustrations of both change and continuity.
It asks 2 things — answer each
- Take a stand: has caste lost its relevance in understanding multi-cultural India
- Elaborate with illustrations of both change and continuity
Open with · NCRB registered 57,582 crimes against Scheduled Castes in 2022, up 13.1% over 2021; caste has lost much ritual rigidity but remains a live identity, network and axis of inequality.
Cover
- Weakening: Article 17 abolished untouchability; urban life, education and new occupations erode rules of food, contact and hereditary work.
- Mobility: reservation has created a Dalit and OBC middle class claiming rights as citizens rather than by ritual rank.
- Politics: after the Mandal Commission recommendation was implemented in 1990, caste shaped parties, coalitions and vote mobilisation.
- Marriage and networks: endogamy persists, and caste ties still channel jobs, credit and trade.
- Violence: 57,582 crimes against SCs in 2022 (NCRB) show caste discrimination endures.
- Concepts and reach: Srinivas's Sanskritisation and dominant caste; caste-like divisions among Muslims and Christians; Maratha, Jat and Patidar reservation demands.
Close with · Caste now works less as a ladder of purity and more as a claim on the State; a reading of Indian pluralism without it misreads both democracy and inequality.
Add value (verified)
- NCRB recorded 57,582 cases of crime against Scheduled Castes in 2022, a 13.1% rise over 2021.NCRB — Crime in India 2022, Volume 1 ↗“A total of 57,582 cases were registered for committing crime against Scheduled Castes (SCs), showing an increase of 13.1% over 2021(50,900 cases).”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2020, GS Paper I — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 16 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer· 218words · Minimalist IAS
NCRB registered 57,582 crimes against Scheduled Castes in 2022, 13.1% more than in 2021. Caste has shed much of its ritual rigidity, but it has changed form rather than lost relevance.
Where caste has weakened
- Ritual hierarchy: Article 17 abolished untouchability; urban anonymity, schooling and new jobs erode rules of food, contact and hereditary work.
- Mobility: reservation has built a Dalit and OBC middle class that claims rights as citizens, not by ritual rank.
Why caste still explains multicultural India
Caste today: politics; marriage; networks; discrimination; religion
- Politics: after the Mandal Commission recommendation was implemented in 1990, caste shaped parties, coalitions and vote mobilisation.
- Marriage and networks: endogamy persists, and caste ties still channel jobs, credit and trade.
- Discrimination: rising atrocity cases show that Dalits and Adivasis still meet exclusion in daily life.
- Mobility within the frame: M.N. Srinivas's Sanskritisation and dominant caste explain how groups climb and how land-owning castes run village power.
- Beyond Hinduism: caste-like divisions among Muslims and Christians show caste crossing religious lines.
- New assertion: Maratha, Jat and Patidar demands for reservation use caste as a resource in the modern State.
Caste now works less as a ladder of purity and more as a claim on the State; a reading of Indian pluralism that leaves it out misreads both its democracy and its inequality.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
