Breaking down the question
The question has two demands. First, identify the different forms in which untouchability persists despite its constitutional abolition under Article 17. Second, illustrate each form concretely. The phrase "still practised" is crucial — the examiner wants a contemporary account, not a historical narrative, and expects you to show that untouchability has adapted rather than disappeared.
Untouchability is best understood, following the logic of purity and pollution, as the extreme end of caste-based exclusion by which certain groups are treated as ritually polluting. Your answer should classify its surviving forms across domains — ritual, spatial, occupational, social and emerging or informal manifestations.
How to approach it
Open with a one-line definition grounding untouchability in the purity-pollution axis and note its formal abolition. Then organise the body around distinct forms, each with a real illustration. Ambedkar's analysis of untouchability as graded inequality and his insistence on annihilation of caste provide the theoretical spine; M. N. Srinivas's fieldwork on ritual distance supports the empirical claims. Keep the treatment classificatory and evidence-led. Our note on untouchability, forms and perspectives develops these points.
Model answer
Untouchability is the practice of treating certain caste groups as ritually polluting, subjecting them to systematic exclusion. Though abolished by Article 17 of the Constitution and penalised under the Protection of Civil Rights Act and the Prevention of Atrocities Act, it survives in several mutated forms.
Ritual untouchability persists in the denial of temple entry, the barring of Dalits from priesthood, and separate access to religious spaces. In many villages Dalits are still excluded from participation in dominant-caste ceremonies, a direct expression of the purity-pollution logic that Ambedkar identified as the ideological core of the practice.
Spatial untouchability is visible in residential segregation, where Dalit hamlets lie apart from the main settlement, and in restricted access to common wells, water taps and cremation grounds. Two-tumbler systems in tea stalls, where separate cups are kept for Dalit customers, remain a documented illustration in parts of the country.
Occupational untouchability endures through the association of Dalits with degrading and hazardous work, most starkly in manual scavenging, which continues despite its statutory prohibition. The hereditary linking of stigmatised castes to the handling of waste, leather and carcasses reproduces the old division of labour that M. N. Srinivas described as maintained by ritual distance.
Social untouchability appears in commensal and marital exclusion — prohibitions on inter-dining, endogamy enforced through violence against inter-caste couples, and the segregation of children by seating or mid-day-meal arrangements in some schools. Barbers and other service providers refusing to serve Dalits is a recurring illustration.
Newer, informal forms have also emerged in urban and digital settings, including discrimination in the rental housing market, where landlords screen tenants by caste, and subtle exclusion in workplaces and educational institutions. These show that untouchability has migrated from overt village practice into covert modern registers.
In sum, untouchability survives less as open ritual prohibition than as a spectrum of ritual, spatial, occupational, social and informal exclusions. Ambedkar's warning that legal abolition cannot by itself dismantle a deeply internalised social order remains sharply relevant.
Examiner's perspective
For a 10-mark answer the examiner values classification and concrete illustration over lengthy theory. A high-scoring script names distinct forms — ritual, spatial, occupational, social and emerging — and attaches a specific, credible example to each, such as manual scavenging or the two-tumbler system.
Grounding the answer in the purity-pollution framework and citing Ambedkar signals sociological command without padding. Avoid a purely historical treatment; the word "still" demands contemporary evidence. Precision, British spelling and a tight structure that maps forms to illustrations will secure the higher band.