chennai new castefree occupations are emerging rapidly driven by technology economic growth and the gradually weakening hold of traditional caste equations over society eminent sociologist andre beteille said on thursday but in the domain of election politics the caste factors are all important with television news breaks sensationalizing every incident in villages encouraging politicians to capitalize on caste vote banks he said while the emergence of computer programmers and software professionals is liberating people from the caste matrix on the other side tv channels show caste conflicts arising out of unequal access to education and employment to be on the rise he said delivering the annual besant memorial lecture on caste in contemporary india the caste obsession is now seen more in cities as it is linked to reservations in jobs and education he noted on the social side intercaste marriages involving subcastes within communities are increasing with removal of legal impediments over rights to property he said adding young men are much more timid in these matters than young women in most parts of india no party can afford not to take caste factors into account but while there is identity politics in play in other countries such as irishitalianjewish clout in new york city what is unique to india is the scale of it pointed out beteille who is professor emeritus of sociology at delhi university and a padma bhushan awardee he recalled that at the 1957 indian science congress prof m n srinivas rang the first alarm bell arguing that democracy would give a new lease of life to caste evoking censure from economists then who believed that caste as they understood it in the traditional chaturvarna system of brahminkshatriyavaisyashudra would go away as the country modernized however over the years while the varna scheme that determined choice of professions based on birth had become obsolete jatis communities of subcastes within the four classes had mushroomed independent of the traditional religious groups in india beteille said there could be no simple overview of the caste system as the jati dynamics which had transformed the ethnographic map evolved differently in various states challenging the egalitarian constitutional provisions now the contemporary jati language of social justice is about forward backward and more forward and more backward and marriages between adjacent castes and subcastes are on the rise he noted