Textual authenticity of scriptures is irrelevant to how the masses actually practice caste

Evidence

As regards the first point, what I would like to ask the Mahatma is, what does it avail to anyone if the texts are interpolations, and if they have been differently interpreted by the saints? The masses do not make any distinction between texts which are genuine and texts which are interpolations. The masses do not know what the texts are. They are too illiterate to know the contents of the shastras. They have believed what they have been told, and what they have been told is that the shastras do enjoin as a religious duty the observance of caste and untouchability. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1232

Categorization

• SEED: An argument that scholarly textual criticism cannot reform popular religion because the masses are governed by received authority, not text — usable in writing about why historical-critical exegesis fails as a force for social change.