Backward Caste (BC), Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) and Other Backward Caste (OBC) to allow underprivileged groups to be targetted for benefits. SCs are groups traditionally considered untouchable. STs are groups that traditionally live in forest and hill regions and have been relatively excluded from economic development. BCs, EBCs, and OBCs are generally defined at the state level to identify groups that are considered materially deprived.

Yet caste is lived, experienced and practiced in everyday life as _jāti_ (henceforth, jati) (Srinivas 1976; Beteille 1996; Bayly 2001; Dirks 2011).<sup>4</sup> Jatis are hereditarily formed endogamous groups whose identities are manifested in a variety of ways: occupational status, property ownership, diets, gender norms, social practices, religious practices emphasizing purity and pollution, and systems of self-governance. Though jatis are usually regarded as sub-castes, placing them within the _varna_ classification can be complicated (Dumont 1980) _._ Each region of India has several hundred jatis and there is no pan-Indian system of ranking them (Srinivas 1976; Bayly 2001; Rao and Ban 2007; Dirks 2011). However, anthropologists have documented numerous _local_ criteria for ranking jatis, as well as significant regional differences in rank orderings. Frequent conflicts over rank order and numerous strategies and circumstances that can change rank order (Srinivas 1976, 1977, 1996).

Much evidence exists on the importance of jatis in many aspects of life in India.<sup>5</sup> Members of a given jati have strong social ties, even across villages (Srinivas 1976; Gupta 2000). Almost all marriages are conducted within these groups (Desai and Dubey 2010; Banerjee, Duflo, Ghatak and Lafortune 2013). This creates an extensive insurance network featuring loans and transfers at critical times which are often bigger in size and more favorable in terms than other sources of finance (Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006; Mazzocco 2012). Thus, jati-based networks shape an individual’s prospects of marriage, employment and out-migration (Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006; Munshi 2011; Munshi 2016). Jati identity is often endogenously determined - shifting to respond to incentives from the state or via the influence of social movements (Rao and Ban 2007, Cassan 2015). Recent work has also found large differences in the allocation of benefits within Scheduled Castes by jati (Kumar and Somanathan 2017), and evidence that jati-level population proportions have significant implications for electoral outcomes (Huber and Suryanarayan 2016).

Despite understanding the importance of jatis in everyday life, the Indian census and most large national surveys such as the National Family Health Survey, the National Sample Surveys of India, and the District Level Household Survey of India, do not have jati-level identifiers. Caste, therefore, continues to be measured and generally understood only in broad terms, with the emphasis on categories such as SC, ST, OBC and “Forward

> 4 The word _jāti_ literally translates to “birth”. The term jati appears in almost all Indian languages and is almost always related to the idea of lineage or kinship group. There are perhaps more than 3000 jatis in India. 5 Munshi (2016) provides a broad overview of this literature.

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