The caste system in India failed to serve as a central mechanism of administration.
=== Later-Mughal period (1700 to 1850) ===Susan Bayly, an anthropologist, notes that "caste is not and never has been a fixed fact of Indian life" and the caste system as we know it today, as a "ritualised scheme of social stratification," developed in two stages during the post-Mughal period, in 18th and early 19th century
 His model definition for caste included the following six characteristics:Segmentation of society into groups whose membership was determined by birth

