My comment was in response to the parent who brought in the word religion into the discussion, as some means of justification of inheriting the religion of their parent is the same as inheriting the caste. ...and now here you claim that they are orthogonal. How very convenient.
This is exactly the kind of deflection used to 'muddle' the conversation, as you put it.
If they are orthogonal, why does caste still even persist ? Why is the notion of caste still held on to ? If one can follow the hindu religion without identifying with caste why do Indian Hindus still hold on to their caste identity ?
It is easy to say the conversations get 'muddled' without bothering to learn why the thing under discussion even exists !!
None of this is new. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar wrote about this decades ago and yet, here we are, with google claiming the same thing you are -- that talking about caste somehow ends up being Hinduphobic.