ized for the removal of defilement that violations were not uncommon. Specific instances of unlawful association, some of which have grown through repetition into customary nonconformity, are observed.22 But if our records provide only meagre evidence of past anti-caste behavior with respect to intercaste association, we have abundant evidence of more recent and current disparity between practice and the ideal. Not only is modern Hindu social intercourse observed to be in widespread violation of the ancient injunctions and prohibitions, but there is open denunciation and legal condemnation of the former laws and practices themselves, and of the philosophy that supported them. The independent Indian government's official decisions of 1948 to make illegal the practice of untouchability in any form and caste discrimination in matters of education, public services, and state employment 23 were made by the representatives of both the higher and the underprivileged castes. That opposition to caste discrimination has long been agitated and practiced by many of India's educated, by city dwellers, by those influenced by industrialization and Westernization has been frequently noted.24 Mr. Gandhi's teachings and example in disregarding caste discrimination have been very influential. So have social changes in India; What chance has caste in the steel works of Jamshedpur or on the Stock Exchange of Bombay? 25 The writer has resided too long in India to make the mistake of suggesting that social caste has disappeared, or that it never has existed, in Hindu society. We agree with those who observe that we have in Hindu social organization probably our best example of caste. But commentators generally have assumed a conformity, throughout India's history, to either the Brahmanical precepts or to an academic ideal concept of caste, which apparently has not existed in actual practice.
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Ju-Shu Pan (1951) studied this question.