I'm increasingly hearing the idea (from Hindu nationalists?) that the caste system was the invention of the British, not anything indigenous. If anyone's in the know, I'd be curious to hear what's broadly accepted among historians nowadays.
Nowadays, the consensus seems to be that Caste was definitely a thing before the Raj took over, but it was more fluid and regional, and was not the centralized, static hierarchy it is today. There were other power structures (feudal, religious, etc) that were not colored by caste, and competed with caste to triangulate people.
The British Raj took calculated steps to centralize, formalize, and entrench the caste system, shaping it into a form that is recognizable today, where it is strictly tied to opportunity and wealth.
It’s worth noting that is a common pattern of colonialism: to divide the colonized people against themselves along arbitrary, existing lines and elevate an arbitrary group, aligning the interest of that group with the interests of the colonizers. It’s a timeless and tragic human story.
I’ve only started researching this subject, so if anybody would like to correct or qualify anything I’ve said, I welcome it.
The Tutsi and Hutu of Rwanda immediately come to mind.
But overtime, especially when people of different cultures and languages interact, things can become twisted and lost in incorrect translations, whether through genuine error,any inherent biases of the translator or malicious intent.
And also overtime, cultures can evolve in response or in interactions with outside forces (especially the Islamic and later European invaders over a 1000 year period) that would seek to implement their own hierarchies and systems. Infact, the indigenous Indians were treated as second class citizens in empires established by outside invaders (Jaziya collection is common example of this).
But what generally makes the system as being attributed to the British is due to the Divide and Conquer strategy implemented by the British. Dividing the populace becomes a lot easier if you can mutate or deepen existing lines in the system.
But truthfully, the exact lineage is very hard to find, especially for a culture that is not only 5000+ years old but has also been interacting with and assimilating just about every other global culture during that 5000 years period (Indians have been interacting with everyone from Chinese, SE Asians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Mesopotomians, Africans, Arabs, Ancient Egyptians, Turkic Nomads, etc)