The Indian government has long insisted that the social hierarchy has no place in the country, which banned caste discrimination in 1950.

More than two-thirds of country’s 1.4 billion people estimated to be on lower rungs of archaic social hierarchy that grades Hindus by birth ...

(CNN) — For millions across India, a rigid caste system thousands of years old still dictates much of daily life – from social circles to dating pools to job opportunities and schooling.