To do so, the panel brings together three case studies on the history of caste in South Asia that put the engagements of regional elites (reformers, intellectuals, and political leaders) with lower caste communities at the center of inquiry. Spanning different periods of the twentieth century, each paper in the panel highlights lesser-known vernacular sources in Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu, respectively, in order to examine the production of categories that came to define the conversation on caste such as achut (the untouchable), jatiyavad (sectarianism/casteism), and the razil (of low origin). While the papers are bound together by their analysis of upper-caste reformist practices, they reveal three diverse and specific idioms of elite reformism. Individual papers show how vernacular elites engendered new concepts for articulating and mobilizing against caste in ways that allowed them to efface their own social location. Our papers track these engagements across a range of literary, social, and political contexts in different regional public spheres. What does the politics of such engagement look like in the specific context of their regions, times, and religions? Each of the papers also point out the limits of such projects. Together, we seek to open up a conversation on how naming caste, especially in vernacular languages and publics creates an excess that eludes and transgresses the limits of elite discourses. In tracking this “excess” by bringing these three perspectives together, our panel hopes to show a significant pattern in the evolution of caste as a social and historical reality.