Explain any three factors which are responsible for breaking down the old notions of caste hierarchy.

caste division is special to India. All societies have some kind of social inequality and some form of division of labour. In most societies, occupations are passed on from one generation to another. Caste system is an extreme form of this.

Here were some of the factors that broke down the old notions of caste hierarchy:

• political leaders and social reformers like Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker advocated and worked to establish a society in which caste inequalities are absent
  
• socio-economic changes
  
• economic development
  
• large scale urbanisation
  
• growth of literacy and education
  
• occupational mobility
  
• weakening of the position of landlords in the villages
  
• the Constitution of India prohibited any caste-based discrimination and laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system.