Svadharma is Hinduism's most-defended and most-attacked idea in one word. The Gita's formulation — better your own duty done imperfectly than another's done well — was meant as a release from envy and imitation, and it has also been used for centuries to defend hereditary caste. Reform movements from the Bhakti poets to Ambedkar have attacked precisely that use, and modern Hindu thinkers largely read svadharma through nature and calling rather than birth. The argument is not settled inside the tradition, and this entry does not settle it.