he persistence of caste in Indian urban settings has historically been viewed as an aberration. Especially in relation to occupational choices, the initial scholarship influenced by the “modernisation” framework attributed the weakening of caste in cities to large-scale manufacturing industries and the rapid urbanisation process. These twin processes, scholars expected, would make caste irrelevant as employers prioritised individual skills rather than social background, which included caste, religion, and gender. The American sociologist Davis Kingsley took this line of thought to an extreme by arguing that “If industrialisation proceeds rapidly [in India] . . . the caste system will have essentially disappeared by the end of this century.”1 Later scholarship advanced similar claims when the Indian state adopted economic liberalisation policies in the 1990s.2 However, such claims were rarely tested with detailed empirical evidence.