"What is the difference between Caste and Varna as understood by the Mahatma? I find none. As defined by the Mahatma, Varna becomes merely a different name for Caste for the simple reason that it is the same in essence—namely pursuit of ancestral calling. Far from making progress the Mahatma has suffered retrogression. By putting this interpretation upon the Vedic conception of Varna he has really made ridiculous what was sublime. While I reject the Vedic Varnavyavastha for reasons given in the speech I must admit that the Vedic theory of Varna as interpreted by Swami Dayanand and some others is a sensible and an inoffensive thing. It did not admit birth as a determining factor in fixing the place of an individual in society. It only recognized worth. The Mahatma’s view of Varna not only makes nonsense of the Vedic Varna but it makes it an abominable thing. Varna and Caste are two very different concepts. Varna is based on the principle of each according to his worth-while Caste is based on the principle of each according to his birth. The two are as distinct as chalk is from cheese. In fact there is an antithesis between the two. If the Mahatma believes as he does in every one following his or her ancestral calling, then most certainly he is advocating the Caste System and that in calling it the Varna System he is not only guilty of terminologicale inexactitude, but he is causing confusion worse confounded. I am sure that all his confusion is due to the fact that the Mahatma has no definite and clear conception as to what is Varna and what is Caste and as to the necessity of either for the conservation of Hinduism."
In India, social classification based on caste has its origin in ancient times. It was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the Mughal Empire and the establishment of the British Raj. Caste is traditionally associated with Hinduism, but is more pervasive in extent: an estimated 98% of contemporary Indians,
"[Trautmann likewise points out that there is no contextual evidence supporting the nontraditional interpretation of varna, “colour, caste” as “skin colour”:] “On the evidence of use it appears that varna here simply means ‘category, social group’.”"
"Bhisma advised Yudhishthira that a king should have a Council of Ministers which should include "four Brahmins...; eight Kshtriyas...; twenty-one wealthy Vaishyas and four Shudras of blameless character and inner self-control"."
"A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste, but not his Hindutva."
"‘He who sees Me in all things and sees all things in Me, never becomes departed from Me. Nor am I lost to him’. (Gita 6.30) And a subsequent verse: ‘He who judges pleasure and pain in others by the same standard as he applies to himself, that yogi is the highest’."
"The table for Bengal shows that the Chandal who stands sixth in the scheme of social precedence and whose touch pollutes, is not much differentiated from the Brahmin (…) In Bombay the Deshastha Brahmin bears a closer affinity to the Son-Koli, a fisherman caste, than to his own compeer, the Chitpavan Brahmin. The Mahar, the Untouchable of the Maratha region, comes next together with the Kunbi, the peasant. They follow in order the Shenvi Brahmin, the Nagar Brahmin and the high-caste Maratha. These results (…) mean that there is no correspondence between social gradation and physical differentiation in Bombay."
"The early Indo-Aryans could no more have thought in modern terms of the race prejudice than they could have invented the airplane."