The worst exhibits of the "caste system" has been the stereotype of the controlling zamindar, heaping inequities over hapless "lower caste" peasants. But zamindari is not a traditional Hindu institution at all. It comes from Islamic & British rule, made much worse by the latter. 
As the rapacious British rule consolidated power, and especially after the First War of Independence in 1857, it created a narrative of what I call #BlameShift. In this narrative war, it shifted the deprivation caused by its own enormous loot and barbarity to "Hindu culture."
Vast amount of atrocity literature was produced. The exploitative revenue system instituted by the British was blamed on "caste." Their robbing widows of rights and pensions, and resulting protests, were blame-shifted to "sati."
indiafacts.org/sati-atrocity-…
indiafacts.org/sati-atrocity-…
Their enforcement of patriarchal land-ownership rights (women in Britain could still not own property) meant the British State would confiscate your land if you did not have a male heir. The resultant male child preference was was blame-shifted to Hindu "female infanticide."
The Hindu tradition of 'stridhan" literally the wealth of women, passed from mother to daughter, was mapped to the patriarchal European institution of "dowry." Loss of status of women in India due to transferable land ownership to male-only heirs was mapped to "dowry atrocities"
The traditional education system was dismantled, and this narrative was implanted in the new generation of colonized Indians, particularly the ruling classes and the bureaucrats. The worst of European serfdom and blood-based artistocracy was grafted onto India as "caste system."
European Colonization was justified by the fabrication of the "Aryan Invasion Theory"—"upper caste Hindus" were themselves colonizers, so there was nothing wrong with the British rule. There is no textual, epigraphic or archaeological evidence for AIT.
garudabooks.com/the-sarasvati-…
garudabooks.com/the-sarasvati-…
At the heart of all of this is the narrative war, more powerful than the war with weapons. It is the corrosive colonial narrative, now carried forward by Western academia and media, and their Indian sepoys. This war continues unabated today. must be won.
