1. Social Disabilities:

• Denial or restriction of access to public facilities, such as wells, schools and roads. 
• Restrictions on movement were also imposed. Untouchables were not allowed to walk on roads and streets within prescribed distance of the houses or persons of higher castes.

2. Economic Disabilities :

• Exclusion from honourable and profitable employments and limited to dirty or menial occupations.
• Restrictions on style of life, especially in the use of goods indicating comfort or luxury. Riding on horseback, use of bicycles, wearing of gold and silver ornaments, all of these were forbidden in many areas. 
• Liability to unremunerated labour for the higher castes and to the performance of menial services for them.

3. Religious Disabilities: In Indian society, untouchables were subjected to various religious restrictions. They were prevented from entering temples, Monasteries and cremation grounds and could not make use of them because it was believed that these places would become impure by their touch and presence. The untouchables could not worship in the temples. Their presence was considered sufficient to defile the God.

They were not allowed to read and listen to the Holy Scriptures.D.N. Majumdar summarized the position of the untouchable castes by maintaining that these castes are not depressed in all states, the same caste may be depressed in one area but may not suffer from any social and political disability in another. The disabilities are rigid where the depressed castes are numerically small, and fewer or on the decline where they numerically strong

Where the higher castes are not numerous and the depressed castes form the bulk of population, the degree of ceremonial pollution observed is very small and often we find few disabilities attached to the inferior castes. A caste may be depressed but individual members of the caste who have succeeded in life and who are wealthy and own property have been admitted to a higher social status.