Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in rural Andhra Pradesh, this chapter argues that the social hierarchy is changing and the constitutionally assured protective discrimination policy is a major contributor to this change. Though underutilised on the education and employment front, this policy, especially the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, has made for a substantial political tool. The policy measures coupled with the lower jatis moving up the economic hierarchy, thanks to the migration to the Middle-East, and the higher jatis slipping down the hierarchy makes for a dynamic socio-economic milieu. The chapter further analyses the significance of such benefits in a neo-liberal economy to the lower jatis, on one hand, and its contribution to the political maximisation of primordial identities, on the other. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Institute of Public Policy; individual chapters, the contributors.