In September of 2006, a mother and daughter belonging to an "untouchable" lower-caste family in a small, rural Indian village were raped, ceremoniously paraded around the village naked, and savagely murdered by over 30 members of a higher-caste mob.
During the Eyptian turmoil of 2011-12, as Mr Snyder pointed out, a small caste of urban intellectuals demanded the observance of human rights; but they lacked the vast mobilising power of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Advancing the familiar Conservative doctrine that more equalities legislation inflicts red tape and cost burdens on businesses, it also insists that caste discrimination affects only a small number of Britons and that education can adequately address the problem.
Barely less scandalous has been a 15-year delay over issues such as building a new nuclear power station or hooking up Lithuania's electricity grid to neighbours.Luckily the politicians' failings have been offset by a small caste of impressive officials who have anchored the country in the European Union and NATO.
Significant among these developments was the rise to power and influence of the Phanariotes, a small caste of Greek (and Hellenized Romanian and Albanian) families who took their collective name from the Phanar, or Lighthouse, quarter of Constantinople, the home of the ecumenical patriarchate.
It's just a self perception of a small caste of bloggers who are much less important than they think, he says.
It is generally agreed that, as with most forms of discrimination, caste prejudice is perpetuated by a small minority, and that the majority of the British Asian population would rather leave the caste system behind in India.
Only now, the decisions are being taken by "a small international caste of business people, entrepreneurs and engineers".
It's a grim prospect: a small priestly caste of seers with access to the ultimate source of knowledge, and the rest of humanity simply tools in their vast schemes.
When Algeria gained its independence, in 1962, Tuareg society still comprised a small, ruling caste of nobles; a lower, tributary class; and a third class, of slaves and vassals.
