Breaking down the question
The question turns on a single analytical distinction — cultural versus structural aspects of caste — and asks how each has changed since 1947. You cannot score well without holding these two dimensions apart, so define them early.
The cultural aspect refers to the ideological and ritual foundations of caste — notions of purity and pollution, hierarchy sanctioned by religion, commensal and marital restrictions, and the value consensus that once legitimised the whole order. The structural aspect refers to caste as a concrete system of social relations — the connection between caste and occupation, the jajmani ties between groups, patterns of interaction, and the distribution of power and resources.
The phrase since independence is a temporal anchor. It invites you to link change to identifiable forces — constitutional guarantees, abolition of untouchability, reservation, land reform, urbanisation, industrialisation and democratic politics. A tight ten-marker names the driver alongside the change.
How to approach it
Given the ten-mark weight, be economical. A crisp definitional opening, two clearly separated analytical blocks, and a one-line synthesis is the ideal shape. Do not narrate the history of caste; focus on change.
Deploy the classic sociological observation, associated with M. N. Srinivas and André Béteille, that the cultural dimension has weakened faster than caste has disappeared as a structure. The ideology of ritual hierarchy has eroded, but caste has re-entrenched itself in new arenas, notably electoral politics. This paradox is the intellectual core of a strong answer.
For readers who want the conceptual foundation, the features of the caste system provide the baseline against which these changes should be measured.
Model answer
Since independence, the caste system has neither vanished nor remained static; it has been transformed unevenly along its two constitutive dimensions. Sociologists distinguish the cultural aspect — the ideology of purity, pollution and religiously sanctioned hierarchy — from the structural aspect — caste as a lived system of occupational, economic and interactional relations. The decisive change is that the cultural foundations have weakened considerably while the structure has persisted in altered forms.
Changes in the cultural aspect
The ritual scaffolding of caste has been steadily undermined. The constitutional abolition of untouchability, the spread of secular education, and urban anonymity have eroded the everyday force of purity and pollution rules. Commensal restrictions have relaxed sharply in cities, where shared workplaces, public transport and eateries make ritual distance impractical. The religious legitimacy that once made hierarchy appear natural has given way to an egalitarian and constitutional value system that formally repudiates it.
Srinivas captured part of this through the twin processes of Sanskritisation and Westernisation, whereby subordinate groups either emulate upper-caste idioms or embrace secular modern values to claim dignity. The overall trend is a secularisation of caste — its detachment from the sacred canopy that once justified it.
Changes in the structural aspect
Structurally, the rigid link between caste and hereditary occupation has loosened. Industrialisation, new professions and reservation in education and employment have opened avenues that birth once foreclosed, weakening the old jajmani interdependence. Yet caste as a structure has not dissolved; it has migrated and reorganised.
Most strikingly, caste has become politicised. In a competitive democracy, numerical caste strength has become a resource for mobilisation, so that caste associations, vote banks and identity politics give the structure a vigorous new lease of life. André Béteille's analysis of the decoupling of caste, class and power is relevant here — the three no longer coincide neatly, and caste increasingly operates as a horizontal interest group rather than a vertical ritual ladder. What has emerged is casteism — the assertion of caste as competitive collective interest — even as ritual hierarchy declines.
Synthesis
The change since independence is therefore paradoxical. The cultural dimension — ritual hierarchy, purity and pollution — has weakened faster and more visibly, while the structural dimension has proved resilient by shedding its economic-ritual moorings and re-emerging in the political arena. Caste has been secularised and politicised at once.
Examiner's perspective
For a ten-marker the examiner is testing conceptual control, not encyclopaedic coverage. The single most important thing is that you keep the cultural and structural axes distinct and address change under each explicitly; blurring them is the commonest cause of a mediocre score.
Reward-earning answers name the drivers — Constitution, reservation, urbanisation, democratic politics — and capture the central paradox that ritual hierarchy has declined while political caste has strengthened. Citing Srinivas on secularisation and Béteille on the decoupling of caste, class and power lifts the answer above narration. Avoid drifting into a general essay on caste evils or writing a history from Manu onwards; stay tightly on change since 1947 and close with a one-line synthesis.