Rural Living and Learning Experience (RLLE)

Village Report (VR)

In the partial fulfillment of the requirement of RLLE of the MBA in Rural Management

Village: Loushing
Block: Phungyar
District: Kamjong
State: Manipur

Submitted By
Gyandeep Sahu: UR19020
Sankalp Mohanty: UR19095

Guided By
Prof. Satyendra Nath Mishra

Xavier School of Rural Management (XSRM)

Xavier University Bhubaneswar (XUB)

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1. Introduction:
Loushing village (see Picture 1) belongs to the Phunguar block of the newly formed Kamjong
district of Manipur state in the northeast part of India. Out of 16 districts of Manipur, seven
districts are newly formed on 8th December 2016. Kamjong is a small-town found southeast
of Ukhrul. Kamjong is likewise one of the sub-divisional headquarters of the Ukhrul locale.
The town is around 80 kilometers from Ukhrul and is associated with Ukhrul-Kamjong State
highway. So on the 9th of December 2016, Loushing came under the clutch of the Kamjong
district. Due to the bad conditions of the roads, it takes around 1.5 hours to reach the block
headquarter Phungyar from the Loushing Village. 1The total geographical area of Loushing
village is around a square kilometer.2
The village settlement area could be found in the resource map of the village attached in the
Annexure-II in the report. The village is surrounded by thick forests. There are only two main
roads connecting to the village which are from Phungyar Block and another from Ukhrul.
Private vehicles or hiring taxi are the only transport medium available here. The host
organization made all the necessary arrangements for our stay and also briefed us about the
work that we were supposed to carry out in the village.
We tried to collect the pin code from the villagers first; but unfortunately, none of them
including the headman of the village was able to tell the Pincode. So we finally took the help
from Google maps. We have also attached the map of the village below which we took from
Google maps using the satellite view.

1
Data collected from Themboy (aged 22), through unstructured interview, dated on 10th November, 2019
2
Data accessed from maps.google.com, dated on 13th December, 2019.

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Picture 1: Image of Loushing village in Google Earth3

1.1 Objective:
This village report is specifically designed to understand and explore all the seven
dimensions like demography, infrastructure, livelihood, culture, governance, migration, and
market of the village, Loushing, Manipur.
In our field exposure of 45 days, we learned and got a first-hand experience of the Loushing
village and the Tangkhul Naga tribe in the hilly area of the state Manipur. This village report
gives an overall idea for the village Loushing under the Phungyar block.

1.2 Scope of the study:

Our scope of the study was restricted to one village Loushing, Phungyar block, Kamjong
district, Manipur. Our objective was to understand the village culture and its seven dynamics
as a whole. We were working with entire people living in the village and being a part of their
daily lives. In order to associate closely with them, the first step was to build our rapport
among the villagers so that they feel free with us.
The people in the village were scattered on the hills and interestingly they are all related to
each other because of genealogical traces.
Our study is divided into seven main dimensions which showcase the real picture of the
village. These dimensions are mentioned in detail in the coming chapters. They are
demography, infrastructure, livelihoods, market, migration, governance and culture. Each of
these dimensions has some good points and some loopholes. Our study and our reflection
about them are also mentioned in the coming chapters.

The only limitation that we had was the language barrier as the major language spoken there
was Tangkhul. Most importantly, not a single person in the village was forced to answer any
of our interventions.

2. Research Method:
The living and action part in rural areas includes a storm of tools. The living and movement
part endeavors to achieve the goal of even more socially, fiscally, politically and sustainable
conditions in the village.4 It moreover helps in analyzing the money related conditions of the
town. This study is important to gain basic knowledge of the object of study. For the research
purpose, we have applied the below methods to do the research on Loushing village:
i. Primary Sources
ii. Secondary Sources
iii. Interviews
iv. Observations
v. Participatory Rural Appraisal

3
Map accessed from https://www.google.com/maps/place/Loushing, dated on 13th December, 2019
4
Irny, S.I. and Rose, A.A. (2005) “Designing a Strategic Information Systems Planning Methodology for
MalaysianInstitutes of Higher Learning (isp- ipta), Issues in Information System, Volume VI, No. 1, 2005

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Some of the challenges we faced in Loushing are:
i. As the entire village population was involved in farming, almost all of them go to
their field from morning 8 am and return after 5 pm. It was not possible to interview
after 5 pm because it would become dark in the winter.
ii. There were few people who did not disclose their bank and savings details honestly.
iii. Some people could not even tell their yearly income rather told us the quantity of
output they get from their fields and we had to convert it into monetary terms.

2.1 Primary Sources:

In this method the surveyor collect information from the target people. This report has been
prepared based on the discussion with the village head, his younger brother and the villagers.
Major support was from the village authority. A structured interview was carried out for all
the households based on the questionnaire prepared before going to the field. The people
cooperated with us very well during the interview process. Also, Participatory Rural
Appraisal tools played a very important role in understanding the village in a much better
way and getting a much clearer picture of the village. Focussed Group Discussion was also
helpful in preparing the case study as most of the people had some sort of issues and
grievances.
The interview was based on a random sampling method and since this village has only 45
households they all have been covered in the process. Initially the upper areas were randomly
chosen since the prominent people like teachers and members of village authority live there.
After that, the lower regions were being covered.

2.2 Secondary Sources:

Secondary sources of data are the generally a set of archives or past recordings that have been
established previously somewhere else. A secondary source diverges from an essential
source, which is a unique wellspring of the data being talked about; an essential source can be
a man with coordinate learning of a circumstance, or a report made by such a man. 5 In this
report following secondary sources have been used:
i) Census Data, 2011
ii) Data from the primary health center
iii) Village authority data
iv) Primary School Data

2.3 Interviews:
Interviews are the strategies for gathering information by asking questions orally, either face-
to-face or by telephone. Interviews can be structured, semi-structured, and unstructured.6

5
Data accessed from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/primary-and-secondary-sources/, dated on
13thDecember, 2019
6
Data accessed from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/primary-and-secondary-sources/, dated on
13thDecember, 2019

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2.3.1 Structured Interview:
Under this method, pre-determined questionnaires are prepared to ask the objects of the
research. This method is helpful for quantitative information. Our structured interview was
only limited to the survey questionnaire. In this approach, each interview is presented with
exactly the same questions in the same order.7
2.3.2 Semi-Structured Interview:
In this kind of interview, the questions comprise of both open-ended and closed-ended
responses, which allow the respondent to give in-depth answers.
In this case, few predetermined questions are prepared by the researcher regarding the issues
which come into light during the interview with the help of some random open-end questions.
We used a mixture of structured and semi-structured interviews, in order to generate
information for our village report.
2.3.3 Unstructured Interview:
These are more like guided conversations and typically involve the interviewer asking open-
ended questions, which generate qualitative data.8 The researcher starts with general research
topics, then guides the conversation towards more important issues.

2.4 Observations:
In observational research a researcher observes all the things happening around him to gain
knowledge on the object of research.9 This method has pros and cons of its own. If you are
noticing every small behavior of the object you may be learning those tiny things;
meanwhile, it can also be possible that what you have been observing that’s just a part of the
complete picture and the knowledge gained out of that part of the picture is not the complete
story. Hence, one has to be very careful about the observations you make and especially
about the conclusion you draw. Non-participant Observation, Participant Observation, and
Field Notes are the types of observation one generally makes.

2.4.1 Non-participant Observation:

This is the natural way of observation where there is no intervention is needed for the
researcher. Simply the researcher notices the things naturally happening around him without
taking any secondary participation. Hence, this process is completely bias-free and there is no
chance of manipulation. So as a result only the real behaviors are captured. Only one single
problem can be stated here on this kind of interview which is the inability to measure the
actual causes of behavior and the potential conclusion drawn by the researcher is also
sometimes questionable. Here, in the village context of Loushing, we applied this observation
pattern for the first 10-12 days during our initial stay-days.

7
Data accessed from https://study.com/academy/lesson/structured-interview-definition-process-
example.html, dated on 13th December, 2019
8
Data accessed from https://study.com/academy/lesson/structured-interview-definition-process-
example.html, dated 13th December, 2019
9
Data accessed from http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/466/996, dated 13th
December, 2019

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2.4.2 Participant Observation:
In this observation method, the researcher directly involves in the object environment to feel
the reality. It means the researcher has to do the same tasks in the same routine as the objects
are doing. After 10-12 days, we started participating in the daily jobs of the villagers. We
started offering help to the villagers when in need, joined school to teach and connect with
the daily lives of the teachers and students, started going to church every Sunday, joined them
in their cultivating farms, etc.

2.4.3 Participatory Rural Appraisal:

This methodology intends to fuse the information and assessments of provincial individuals
in the arranging and the executives of improvement projects and undertakings. The PRA
process ensures the involvement of locals by including them directly in the issue
identification and evaluation process10.
Below mentioned are some of the PRA tools:
i. Resource Map (see Annexure - 1)
ii. Social Map (see Annexure - 2)
iii. Timeline (see Annexure - 3)
iv. Seasonal Map (see Annexure - 4)
v. Pairwise ranking (see Annexure - 5)
vi. Mobility Map (see Annexure - 6)
vii. Venn Diagram

2.5 Field Notes:

They refer to qualitative notes, recorded by the researchers, taken during or after the
observation of a specific phenomenon. These notes are considered as evidences to support the
observations to be made in the research paper or report. But the only issue is that the notes
made are all subject to memory.

2.6 Translators and Field support personals:

Initially, It is obvious to face difficulties in understanding the local language, “Tui” and
“Tangkhul” which were spoken by all the villagers. So the help from the village headman and
his younger brother who understand English is surely appreciated. One of the local substitute
teachers and the Church clerk are also good at both English and Hindi. They also helped us
jelling up with the villagers by helping us as translators. Similarly, during PRA tools
Themboy – the younger brother of the headman helped us a lot with managing the villagers
making the tools successfully completed.

2.7 Reflections on the methodology used:

Initially, the villagers were a bit hesitant in answering our questions. However, we were able
to make it possible with the help of headman, Themboy and some other prominent villagers.
Also, while conducting surveys, the village people were constantly asking us whether we
10
Data accessed from https://participedia.net/en/methods/participatory-rural-appraisal, dated 13th December,
2019

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were from the government and for which purpose the survey data would be used. Also, after
conducting PRA, the elderly people of the village also started opening up to us. After staying
in the village for a long time the villagers accepted us as their friends and started opening up
with us and also started teaching us their local languages.

3. Demography:
Demography is defined as a statistical study of the population especially human beings. It is a
study of statistics such as birth, death, literacy rate, income, and incidence of diseases. 11 The
Loushing village has exactly 45 households and 205 people including children with 123
males and 82 females i.e. 52.56% are males and rest 47.44% are the females of the total
population in the village (see Figure 1).

11
Data accessed from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demography, dated on 12th December,
2019

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