Couple of important points I want to make about certain caste based occupations, it’s legitimacy (or indeed non legitimacy) today and conversion.
It is Twitter and I am attempting nuance.
It may not be perfect but let’s work to help those in situations which are unfortunate.

I hv frequently seen people go to restrooms in restaurants and turn up their noses at the smell there.
Imagine the situation and how terrible it is for those who have to clean those toilets especially if on a daily basis.
Let’s put ourselves in their shoes for a moment.

I cannot ever justify this in any manner possible... especially if one says that it is birth based Jati which justifies that this most be done by certain people.
(It still happens in parts of the world.. even today)
Would you like anybody’s child to HAVE to do this?
Think!

Let’s shift the emphasis:
If someone has to do this for money and money alone AND a Padre came and offered him a different job with money, possibly a foreign position as a preacher... would that man remain a Hindu?
Would he?
It’s easy for me to say “he must not convert “

Today... if we support birth based occupations ... then can PM Modi who to my mind has done a great amount of good in his terms so far... can he ever become a PM?
Can he?

And remember that he did it far better than others perhaps because his mind is service oriented....

Of course.. there is an association of class to occupation which is of importance in the society.
Let me tell you a short anecdote.
One of my friends, an Iyer Brahmin lived in a chawl/slum in India.. house next to the communal toilets.
I was one of the few people who visited him.

He was perhaps the only Brahmin in that entire locality.. but he never used to tell anybody where he lived.

I knew as I knew him from childhood... but the look on his face when I came to hv tea at his house was a mix of pride and shame.
+

+
Pride that “ek toh aisa dost hai who comes to my house to hv tea” despite everything... and shame that he really wished that he didn’t have to live there...
The smell there was so horrendous in the mornings that I used to wonder how he could live there... BUT+

+ BUT one day I thought about what about those who had to clean those toilets?
Communal toilets in India are of such odour and which overflow with such regularity that it really is very difficult to imagine that these are being cleaned by someone once a day.

And of course who would marry their daughter to someone who was living in such a place?
It’s important to realise the implications of all these things in today’s world...
What the social implications of living in real places bring is very important.

I cleaned a few gutters when I was much younger ... and let me tell you that the experience was extremely unpleasant. The chance of contracting disease and ill health is extremely high and the smell won’t leave your hands.. Please think about the suffering of our brothers/sisters