"For the British, caste was a great obstacle, an unmitigated evil not because they believed in castelessness or a non-hierarchical system but because it stood in their way of their breaking Indian society. … caste did hinder the process of atomization of Indian society and made … conquest and governance more difficult. The present fury and theoretical formulation against the organization of Indian society into castes, whatever the justification or otherwise of caste today, thus begins with British rule. 178"