This chapter explores the moves made by jurists, politicians and government agencies in the decades after 1947. It discusses the provisions of the 1950 Constitution in regard to low-caste 'uplift'. The chapter attempts to interpret the battles over caste-based regional welfare schemes which have been an explosive feature of Indian politics in the years since Independence. The Indian state is certainly not all-powerful, and the moves it has made in regard to caste, reservations and the amelioration of social and economic 'backwardness' have been anything but consistent. Nevertheless, both the 1950 Constitution and the country's recent social justice schemes have confirmed much that the colonial planners and policy-makers had established in areas where they too regarded jati and varna as powerful realities of Indian life. It is hard to believe that the language of Indian politics will ever be purged of its references to 'scheduling', OBCs, Dalits, KHAMs, Backwards, Forwards, Manuvadi elites, and all the other caste-related categories and slogans.