Urbanisation has weakened traditional caste boundaries, but has not erased caste-based inequalities. The rise in recorded cases under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act from 45,995 in 2020 to 48,669 in 2024 indicates that caste continues to shape social relations in transformed forms.

Caste Is Weakening In Urban Areas

• 1. Occupational De-linking: Professional skills and credentials increasingly replace hereditary caste occupations (e.g., IT, retail, and gig economy platforms).
• 2. Weaker Endogamy: Higher education, co-working spaces, and economic autonomy broaden matrimonial choices, leading to a gradual rise in inter-caste marriages.
• 3. Urban Social Mixing: Common transit (metros, buses), universities, and public food outlets dilute traditional ritual purity-pollution barriers.
• 4. Growing Class Identity: Income, profession, and educational attainment increasingly determine status alongside caste identity.
• 5. Upward Mobility: Affirmative action (reservations) and education have created an expanding SC/ST/OBC professional middle class.
• 6. Weaker Social Control: Traditional Jati Panchayats exercise far less authority in anonymous urban settings, where constitutional protections prevail.

Yet Caste Persists in New Forms

• 1. Matrimonial Endogamy: Caste remains highly influential in spouse selection; 49% of Jeevansathi users in metropolitan areas retain mandatory caste preferences.
• 2. Housing Segregation: Caste continues to dictate residential access; for instance, a 2025 case in Ahmedabad documented a Dalit buyer denied a flat after disclosing caste identity.
• 3. Campus Discrimination: Modern educational institutions have not eliminated subtle caste prejudice; complaints lodged with the UGC rose from 173 in 2019–20 to 378 in 2023–24.
• 4. Network-Based Advantage: Informal kinship networks and social capital continue to influence corporate recruitment and business opportunities.
• 5. Associational Caste: Traditional jati solidarity reorganizes into formal welfare associations, housing societies, and community trusts (e.g., Patidar associations in Gujarat).
• 6. Subtle Exclusion: Explicit untouchability has shifted towards indirect discrimination based on surnames, dietary habits, and “cultural preferences”.

Nature of the Transformation

Urbanisation is producing a metamorphosis, not the disappearance, of caste—shifting it from visible ritual hierarchy towards subtler inequalities embedded in marriage, housing, networks, and opportunities.