As the caste hierarchy disintegrated, becoming a range of groups each seeking to assert their position, the role of the "jati thalavan" became more and more impossible and was eventually abandoned, the last occupant of the post having been installed in 1926. The introduction of new technologies in the post-World War II era significantly affected the entire notion of an elite, as developments such as nylon fishing nets, refrigeration and motorisation made fishing more lucrative as an occupation in its own right and removed the economic differences between those who laboured and those who either traded or lived off the organisation of labour. There is still a ritual element today surrounding certain events at Our Lady of Snows but the caste system which existed for centuries has gone.