India’s caste system remains entrenched, 75 years after independence

Among the "racist" people in the US, many are actually "classist". That also runs high in Indian society.

In my experience Christians are much more forward thinking and secular than other minorities in India. They live peacefully and blend very well with the Hindus. Even most of their names, outside of Goa, Mumbai, etc., are derived from Sanskrit, Tamil, Bengali roots depending on the region. A lot of Indian Christians will have only one name, i.e. middle name or first name identifying their Christian identity. Sometimes they often just ommit the Christian part except in official documents.

Anyway, this is a good sign totally as you say, but that is true in prosperous regions and/or households.

For backward regions and poor families, I am not sure if people will even let them hold religious offices.

Btw, even Christians can claim backward castes benefits if their ancestors happened to belong to a so called lower caste when they were not Christians.

Over the years India has implemented several affirmative action programs (locally called "reservations") that ensures a more level playing field.

India has actually done reasonably well economically since 1995. Unless you can point to specific studies that correlate India's less-than-spectacular economic performance to the caste system directly, this is a fairly baseless statement. You only have to take a quick look at the last 10 year average GDP.