Kayastha is a caste of scribes, administrators and account keepers, a subtype of the Vaishya Varna. There are two things, Varna, which is based on inborn natural temperament and turn towards manual, mechanical labour, shudras, towards business and trade, production and industry, Vaishya, towards battle, war, heroism, leadership, kshatriya, towards knowledge, Brahmana. As you can see this division is in every civilisation. It had its advantages in chosing the right profession and through that serving the community through your best possibilities.
Originally it was based on the soul type as the soul in its evolutionary journey stands on the physical, vital or mental planes respectively, in the course of the cycle of rebirth. It was a flexible system during the later Vedic period. Later the element of birth, heredity and growing up milieu was added to it to maintain social order through pure types. This became crystallised later on leading to its progressive degeneration, social evils and hence it went out of practice except for the sake of surname and certain traditional customs.
As you can see, there were pros and cons of it. Now the Time Spirit has broken it. Caste or Jati is something different. It was based purely on the nature of work one was doing. Thus, for example, there always were only four varnas but over 250 jatis and communities. Varna vyavastha was too subtle for the British and hence they merged and used the word caste. This led to a new kind of divisive politics that is stroked by vested politicians for vote. An average person, including many Indians, himself unaware of the origin of these things simply use them as rhetoric to turn what was once a means of inner differentiation based on temperament, into permanent division for vote bank politics.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
