It was commonplace experience growing up in Ashraf-majority village to hear slurs like "musalman hai to kia hua, hai to badzaat hi nh". once I heard someone say "jis gaon me Syed hota, us gaon k aas paas koi shaitan nhi aa sakta". But the most flagrant but less obvious ways

Casteism is perpetuated, I have witnessed and continue to, is via religious gatherings-Juma khutba, Milaad, Jalsa etc- where Ashraf Maulvis indulge in direct casteist slurs like "badzaat"(while referring to lower caste muslims) and not so direct like-

Ek "Ahmaq(idiot) dhobi", "Nafarmani Julaha", Bedeeni qasab" etc as part of their anecdotes/quips(Notice here the particular quality of individual is not his quality it represents "caste quality"). And how one Awliya/Buzurg (of course Ashrafs) rescued/saved those Ahmaq/Bedeen...

Here again saviourship is estblshd as "caste quality" of Ashrafs). In Ashraf Maulvis' sermons, casteism peppered anecdotes abound where inferiority of lower caste muslims(badzaat, badmaash, bezaat, Bedeen etc) and corresponding superiority of upper caste muslims(wherein They

would refer certain upper caste individual past or present in grandiose and patronising tone and tiltle eg Auliya, Murshid, ek Buzurg, Sahab-e-qalam etc.)is very skillfully estblshd.This work of normalising casteism in two-way traffic has very real cnsequences. I heard once my

Aunt(Julaha caste)counselling my cousin(who had joked of marrying a syed)not to ever marry a Syeda. Why, because if u ill-treat a Syeda, u incur huge sin. Implications clear: veneration is one-sided "reserved" and consequently contempt for the other is legit tolerable.

Interestingly, my uncle had different reasons not to marry a syeda: she would call everyone of us a "badzaat Julaha".
Some might call uncle reverse casteist. I call it Pasmanda defence mechanism.
PS: Ashraf hegemony is thorough. Psmanda mvment needs to estblish its

Counter-hegmony in all spheres including challenge to counter-hegemonic theology.
@AnisShafiullah

Correction:
*Including the sphere of theological hegemony.