Since it is politically fashionable to blame the British for all our woes, one can as an aside note that the insistence on persons having “surnames” may have unintentionally helped strengthen caste. Having had no tradition of surnames, many fell into the trap of calling themselves Narayana Nair, Narayana Mudaliar, Narayana Gowda, Narayana Reddy, Narayan Bhosale, Narayan Varma, Narayan Chatterjee, Narayan Gupta, Narayan Sharma and so on, all of which invariably revealed the caste origins of the individuals. The film industry realised that if they had to appeal to broader audiences, a “decastification” process was a good idea. Plain Ashok Kumar was preferred to Ashok Kumar Ganguly. When Yusuf Khan adopted a Hindoo name, clearly he did not want to align himself with just one caste. So Dilip Kumar it was. As for women actors (who according to the misogynist Manu were of no consequential caste anyway), many were quite comfortable living with a single given name like Nutan, Padmini and so on.

It is to Srinivas’s credit that he came up with the important insight that census enumerations and electoral politics have actually given fresh life and impetus to our age-old caste system. Those who ignore caste ignore what is an overwhelming social reality in India. The late Kanshi Ram was acutely aware that the communist parties who talk about “classless” societies seem to be almost invariably led by an upper caste politburo. Many British administrators argued that with their departure, free India would deteriorate into rule by an upper caste Hindoo oligarchy. To an extent, the early years of Independence in fact bore this out. But the strange genius of India has ensured that gradually but inexorably this has changed.

... contd.