In the past few decades, ever since Dalits were able to reach out to global communities to discuss their experiences, those belonging to the upper castes have become more vehement in their attempts to distance Indian/Hindu culture from caste. They posit that the caste system was not truly a part of Hinduism until the arrival of the British in the 1600s when they created these artificial categories to divide the local population. As plenty of data and research suggests, that is a cover-up for a much deeper and older malaise.
