was the caste system fair?

You're forgetting we won. You were comparing two systems, one where you had to buy commissions, and one where you didn't, namely France and Britain.

In the example you gave to indicate how detrimental buying commissions was, the side that sold commissions won. "Close run thing," or not, the side that didn't sell commissions lost. So, all things being equal, it would seem that selling commissions was a good thing.

This is why you don't win many arguments.

Sorry Napoleon ran wild over Europe for a decade while being attacked by forces many times his size and part of his abilities to do so was his appointments of military leaders due to merit.

You don't know a lot about and especially not about the Napoleonic era, correct? There are some quite good sources/books (a few of them even online) about les maréchaux de Napoléon 1er and how they got their posts ...

That's a better example. Not a lot better, but better all the same.

Telling **** from shinola's not that difficult.

".........the degree of genetic differentiation among Indian jati groups living side by side in the same village is typically two to three times higher than the genetic differentiation between northern and southern Europeans.
The truth is that India is composed of a large number of small population."