I have been reading the Tribes and Castes of Bombay, and here are some interesting extracts from Tribes and Castes of Bombay by Reginald Edward Enthoven, Superintendent of Ethnography, Bombay Presidency, published in three volumes from 1920-22.
The citation in Chicago format is:
Enthoven, Reginald Edward. The Tribes and Castes of Bombay: In Three Volumes. 1. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Government Central Press, 1920.
and the sub-headings are mine.
How Broad is Your Nose?
In May 1901 the Government of India, issued orders for the commencement of the Ethnographical Survey of the Provinces noted in the margin, and proposed that the enquiries into the origin, social configuration, customs and occupations of the numerous castes and tribes should be spread over a period of four or five years. These enquiries were to follow closely the lines of certain questions approved by Messrs. Nesfield, Ibbetson and Risley at a Conference held in 1885.
...
In the early days of the Survey a trained operator was employed for a short time, under the direction of the late Sir Herbert Risley, in taking anthropometrical records of some of the leading caste types in Bombay.
...
It will be seen that in the first of these groups a low cephalic index is shared by the Mahar, one of the lowest castes of the Presidency, with the Deshasth and Chitpavan Brahmans. This is at least disconcerting. The Mahar would not be expected in such strange company. Again, in the case of the nasal index, to which Risley at one time attached so much importance as to hazard the theory that a man’s social status would be found to vary in inverse ratio to the mean relative width of his nose, we find the lead rightly taken by three Brahman castes, which are followed by Vani and Prabhu.
Emergence of a New Caste
In the writer’s experience, one of the lowest castes of the Presidency, the Mahars, developed an embryo new caste recently in this way, owing to a number of Mahars having learnt to drive motor vehicles. The added wealth and prestige that this occupation brought with it showed itself in a "Driver" section, which was disinclined to continue free inter-marriage with the caste as a whole. It only requires time in such circumstances for the caste to develop a completely endogamous "Driver" division
