Varnashrama and its contemporary relevance (Answer in 150 words)

- Varnashrama and its contemporary relevance (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Varnashrama joins two classical schemes, a fourfold ordering of society and a fourfold ordering of the life course. Neither now organises Indian society.

Body
1. The scheme: varna ranks Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, each with a prescribed occupation and dharma, traced to the Purusha Sukta and codified in the Manusmriti. Ashrama divides the twice-born life into brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa, matched to dharma, artha, kama and moksha.
2. What survives: varna persists as the all-India grid onto which local jatis translate their claims, since Sanskritisation is argued in varna terms, while its occupational rule is dead. Studentship and householdership remain socially real, sannyasa is institutionalised in maths, and vanaprastha has gone.
3. The judgment: as a working order it is defunct, and Articles 15 and 17 removed its legal force. Ghurye and Srinivas both noted that jati, not varna, was ever the operative unit, and Dumont read varna as a model of purity rather than a description.

Conclusion
Its relevance today is rhetorical: it legitimises hierarchy for some and is the target of Ambedkarite critique for others.