Has caste lost its relevance in understanding the multi-cultural Indian Society? Elaborate your answer with illustrations.

Caste has not lost relevance in multicultural India; it has changed its sites and functions. Its ritual expression has weakened, but its social, political and material salience endures.

Where caste has weakened

• Urbanization and anonymity have eroded commensality and purity-pollution rules in cities, workplaces and public transport.
• Occupational mobility has delinked many jatis from hereditary callings; inter-caste contact in education and industry has grown.

Where caste remains central

• Marriage: endogamy persists — the India Human Development Survey found about 95 per cent of marriages remain within caste; khap diktats and honour crimes police its boundaries.
• Politics: caste-based parties and vote mobilization thrive — what Rajni Kothari called the politicization of caste; Bihar's 2023 caste survey and the nationwide caste-census demand underline its electoral weight.
• Material life: reservations, NCRB data on crimes against SCs/STs, manual scavenging deaths and urban residential segregation show caste as lived inequality.
• New arenas: caste associations, matrimonial platforms, and the diaspora — the Cisco discrimination case and Seattle's 2023 anti-caste ordinance — prove its portability.

As M.N. Srinivas showed, caste adapts rather than dissolves. It has moved from ritual hierarchy to identity and interest group, and remains indispensable for understanding Indian society.