There is evidence to show that the caste system was originally based on skin colour.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/skin-colour-tied-to-caste-system-says-study/articleshow/55532665.cms

Over time, because of intermixing, it became possible for higher castes to be dark skinned, and lower castes to be fair skinned. However, even today, higher castes or overwhelmingly fairer than lower castes. This leads to a lot of prejudice in India for both men and women in society, as well as marriage and jobs. Fair skin is considered a sign of prestige.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/10/7/black-is-blemish-in-india

Thus, just as the US has a policy of affirmative action for blacks, isn't it time India had a reservation system based on skin colour? In fact, the number of Dalit beneficiaries could actually improve and they could take seats that otherwise go to fairer skinned middle castes like Jats.

What about OCI? I wasn’t born in India, my parents weren’t born in India. So if I wanted to live in India, to experience the place, what documentation would I need? No one in my family has a familial connection to India. We have family and friends in Kenya and Tanzania. When I think about it, my Indian Mauritius friends are in the same about. We know the languages, we’re culturally Indian, yet we don’t share a connection with Indians from India. More of you need to come over here! Second and Third Generation Indian immigrants are running the show in the U.K. and several places in Europe. We’re only a small part of the population, but are economic contributions and high tax paying circumstances are huge. I’m so proud. Imagine where we will be in just a few more generations? Rishi Sunak already made it as Prime Minister. Maybe we’ll see more European Indians becoming more politically active. Get your education in India sorted, then come to study over here. The newer Indian immigrants from India study, work, buy houses. In under 10 years… fresh Indian immigrants are well settled in the U.K. Go Bharat! None of that caste bs matters. You will see Indians with middle caste surnames , or even lower caste surnames, running their own businesses and companies, living in multimillion pound houses. This caste nonsense is holding Indians in India back from developing and moving forward as a society. You don’t like the U.K/Europe/America? Move to the Arab Gulf States which have a big corporate Indian population. More Mandirs are being built because even the Arabs know professional Indians contribute a lot to their economies.

Please stop embarrassing yourself. Others have pointed out other problems with this post. As an Indian living in the UK, Rishi's made a pig's breakfast out of being the British PM. If you don't know that, your awareness of the world is really appalling. He is nobody to shout about. In fact, most projections show him leading the Tories to a record defeat. Please take your flag-waving elsewhere.

Alright i understand that holding clat in regional languages is probably a bad idea, but then what is the sense behind sc and st reservation? All the reserved seats are snatched up by privileged Sc and St people who can afford good English education and the people who actually need reservation don't even get the chance to come to top nlus

What do you mean by "afford"? If you have read the Constitution, you'd realise that the reservation is made for inclusion and representation of the SC and ST community in the general diaspora and NOT on financial status. There have been numerous instances of them not getting into good positions at work and into colleges due to caste politics which necessitate such reservations. So please educate yourself and then comment.

Alright agreed, but my main point wasnt that, my main point was that all reserved seats are taken up by privileged sc and st people who don't need reservation and the people who actually can't afford good English education because of societal/financial constraints, can't get the reserved seats

What? Aren’t Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes (SC and ST) Dalits and indigenous Indian tribal people? Where did their riches come from?? They are like dark skin Shudras. Nobody is helping them gain an education - in English or otherwise. What are you smoking? SC/ST and Shudras are relugated to being dark skin servants/labourers to the lighter skin upper castes & middle castes.

There was no need to specify "Brahmins" here. Upper caste would have sufficed.

Caste is a very endemic concept. Perhaps, a better understanding (and reading) of social reality would have told you that most cases of caste violence (physical violence) in the past 3-4 decades have been committed by NBFCs (Non-Brahmin Forward Castes), particularly in South India.

Bit of an over-generalisation. Jats definitely look Indian, if anything they look like most Punjabis. Some might be fair but you'd have to be blind to confuse them with Mediterranean populations. And Middle Eastern folks are also largely brown along different shades. One can easily tell the difference between most fair north Indians versus folks from Central Asia/Iran/Afghanistan, etc.

And within the Brahmanical order of things (if you buy that, I know Jats don't), Jats are not considered an upper caste in that the Brahmins don't consider them to be either Kshatriyas or Vaishyas. The fact that they classify themselves as a higher caste is hypocritical with their supposed rejection of the caste system which is entirely a Brahmanical construct. Either accept the Brahmin caste system for what it is or reject it in full measure (which is the right answer). Half-way self-identification doesn't work.

Jats are Sat-Shudras. Shudras itself is an artificial term. First it was used to incorporate Indusian commoners into the Vedic religion, just as how Indusian elites were incorporated as Vaishyas. You can see that even in Mauryan period, Shudras were never considered low caste or slave per se.

Slaves were called Dasyus (ancestors of extremely backward classes). Many of these people when they got incorporated into the Shudra class over time, reduced the value of the class and a whole into its present day status. Still apart from Gangu belt, other places of India distinguish Sat-Shudras (UCs sans janeu) from Asat-Shudra (lower caste shudra)

To be honest they don't look foreign or out of India ancestry, but they are definitely generally taller and fairer than others. They don't look Caucasian or Middle eastern in any angle, I would say they look better than europeans and arabs haha. I am a pathan in UP, and I look pretty different from locals because of my fair skin and grey eyes, so people keep asking me if I am a Jaat because although Pathans are present in large numbers In India they live a bit isolated from other communities.

The comment on South Indian Brahmins is 100% correct. Even most South Indian Brahmins are darker skinned. Some might be fairer, but the majority aren’t. Just look at the matrimony ads: South Indian Brahmin men and women are darker than North Indian Brahmins/Kshatriyas. South Indian Brahmins tend to fetishise lighter skinned North Indians. It’s really ugly.

Punjabis (Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis) are fairer than the average Indian. Maybe not all Punjabis…. but I would say many don’t look like the stereotypical version of brown Indians. The actor Karan Vohra would not look out of place in the Middle East. His wife is the same. Then you have women like Kanika Kapoor who are fully Indian yet they could be mistaken for another ethnicity. There are too many famous and non famous Punjabi people to list. Punjabis and Haryvani are basically taller/fairer than people from other states (barring places like Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal.

All this talk about caste is very weird for children and grandchildren of South Asian immigrants. None of that matters in the U.K./Europe. Families do make sure that everyone marries into the same ethnicity (Gujjus marrying Gujjus, Kashmiris marrying Kashmiris, and so on and so forth), but caste isn’t so ingrained over here. My family are originally from Tanzania and Kenya, it’s the same over there. I’m second generation Gujarati and Punjabi, but my mum hasn’t even been to India. That’s how far removed Tanzanian Indians/Kenyan Indians are from the motherland. We can’t relate to people who are directly from India. East African Indian culture is so different. South African Indians would feel weird in India too. I thank my great-great-great grandfather for leaving India decades before Partition. Indian people from India care too much about caste and skin colour. I’m on the lighter skin tone end for a British Indian. I was called all sorts when I was growing up - Arab/Pakistani/Afghan - but I embraced it and enjoyed telling people my ancestors are Northern and Northwest Indians! My son is as light as me, but the generations have changed. Being lighter for your ethnicity isn’t unique anymore, because the U.K. has a very large light skin ethnic population. My son and my next child probably won’t face the same bizzare questions about their ancestry. Telling ignorant people that you are actually Indian (when they stupidly assume every other ethnicity under the sun) is actually satisfying. I mean.. most ignorant Americans don’t even know Indian people can be lighter skinned with lighter eyes. That Indian Simpson character is what they think every Indian looks like hahaha. More fool them.