The jaati system was composed of individuals performing very specialized tasks that required high skill. The nature of these skills was often such that you needed to start really young to pick them up.
Despite generations of Vaidika learning behind me, picking up the strands /1

later in life is incredibly hard. I am amazed at how much further younger guys like @Suhas_AN and @GhorAngirasa have got. Even more amazing when I take lessons for the young ones. Many of these skills were something children got started on at 12 onwards. The nature of learning /2

also meant that you needed to stay close to an experienced craftsman to learn. Swamimalai was home to bronze vigraha makers. Dindigul was a cluster for locksmiths. Things were made to last for generations, sometimes for centuries. So it is with dance and music. Pre-industrial /3

cultures had unique skills. A dancer needs to start at 5-6 years of age. A warrior needed to practice his skills starting from the age of 8-10.
Europeans record the sparseness and simplicity of tools with which sophisticated products were fabricated. Now what changes with /4

industrialization is that a lot of the tasks that require motor skills, brute power and unique cognitive abilities is shifted to machines. Standardization of process steps, manufacturing steps and mechanization of tasks even related to agriculture means that you need a large /5

pool of workers that can be trained step by step in tasks. Post-industrial world demands an even larger pool of individuals with homogenized tastes, pursuits and skills. Indeed post-industrial world demands individuals who can spend 40 hours focused on repetitive tasks /6

in a week, distract themselves for 10 hours a week, sleep for 56 hours a week, 12-13 hours per work in things like personal health, sanitation and grooming. That leaves about 50 hours that need to be filled in caring for the young, home care. In this world, there is no place /7

for skills to be handed across generations. The angst and need to be independent as also the need to cut ties with a previous generation are derivative of this demand of the modern economy. This process had begun in India more than 2 centuries back. The two groups of people /8

that made this transition were
1) The upper caste Kayasthas, Brahmins, Mudaliars that shifted to service roles in the British administration and allied services.
2) The Dalits who lost their traditional occupations like village security, tanning and were turned in a large /9

pool of labour, in agricultural, industrial and service jobs. This is why you will see the least nostalgia for the old agrarian life in both these groups of people.
If we see a huge number of Dalits in labour roles, it is because they were providing labour in the village /10

which has been transferred to the urban industries and construction sites.
Post-industrial societies will require a large number of people in generic service occupations, with much of precision manufacturing skills transferred to robots. People will entertain themselves with /11

generic humour videos, songs with electronic music generation. You need skills to make movies, skills that are imparted by training, not artistic talent. Script writing, music composition, editing, scene composition, property and set management, photography are all skills /12

not crafts.
You do not need to apprentice with a master to learn them. They are imparted in short courses. Thereafter, it is just a question of networking and being able to negotiate the social nuances of finding someone to put in the money to help make the film as well as /13

popularize it. Compare with a Mahabharatam performance in the month of Chitirai at Draupadi Amman temples. Each of the parts, the singing, enactment, sets, costumes and props required intense craft to fulfil.
This is the main reason the varna system is already finished /14

Jaati stays mainly due to differential in social status, economic position and access to jobs, network and capital. As pride or resentment. Usually both. /END