Rural Research Report
- Findings based on a study done in a small village Karattai in Tamil Nadu
Submitted to
Prof. Arbind Sinha
by
Amy Thomas
M. Vaishnavi
Vignesh Sriram
Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA)
Ahmedabad
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
1
The team would like to acknowledge the help of Prof. Arbind Sinha, faculty, MICA for his help
and guidance. As a teacher, he has always impressed upon us the importance of ethnography.
His valuable insights on to how to go about it have helped us during our study of rural structure.
His minutely documented guide on rural research was also extremely helpful in our work.
We are deeply indebted to Mr. R. Kannadasan, the Panchayat President of the village of
Karattai. He took out much of his time and went out of his way to provide us all the information
we needed on the village. His hospitality and efforts to introduce us to the village folks went a
long way in making us feel at ease and go about our work better.
Finally our work would have been incomplete without the support and frank opinion of the
people of the village, who went out of their way to make us feel welcome into their homes and
into their culture and enthusiastically responded to all our queries- A very special thanks to
them.
Table of Contents
2
Introduction…………………….………………………………………………………………………………….…………….4
Research Methodology……………….……………………………………………………………………………………..5
Village Study and Profile…………………………………………………………………………………………………...6
Social structure and village culture…………………………………………………………………………………..13
Media Consumption…………………………………………..…………………………………………………………….17
Brand Consumption………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20
Communications Need Assessment………………………………………….………………………………………23
Communication Strategy…………………………………………………………………….……………………………23
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………25
Appendix
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INTRODUCTION
So, what’s a Rural area? Sadly, Even the Census doesn’t have a definition for rural.
According to the Census, an Urban area is defined as one where,
(a) all places with a Municipality, Corporation or Cantonment or Notified Town Area
(b) all other places which satisfied the following criteria:
(i) a minimum population of 5,000.
(ii) at least 75% of the male working population was non-agricultural.
(iii) a density of population of at least 400 sq. Km. (i.e. 1000 per sq. Mile)
And everything which is not urban is rural.
More than 600 million of our total population and contributing half of our national income
comes from the rural areas. Inspite of the hetrogenous market, rural India is not acknowledged
at all. The average population of 67% of the villages is 1100 people. More than half of the
population lies in the lower rings of SEC (R3 & R4). Unlike the notion that families in villages are
mostly joint families, around 60% of the population lives in nuclear family format. Around 70%
of the population is either illiterate or has gone to school till class 5-9 years. Literacy is one of
the prime reasons why around 98% of the rural population lies in the income bracket of Rs
1,000- 5,000. The percapita income is Rs 490 against a national average of Rs 590. The money
for expenditure comes primarily from agriculture. 61% of the rural population owns land for
cultivation. Even though a huge proportion owns land, this cannot be used for agricultural
purposes as the land might not be sufficient in most of the cases or the farming is raindependant. In majority of the cases, people who own the land work on their own land or they
work for other land-owners in the village. Their lifestyle habits are very distinct from urban
population. Majority of them use wood and cowdung as fuel and use bicycles for transportation
purposes. The pucca house where majority of the people live are brick burnt houses. There is
also a significant population in R4 who live in houses made of wood, bamboo, timber, asbestos
sheet etc.
Data gathered from Census 2001 & NRS 2006
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Guided Observations: Observing the behaviour of the people staying there for around 10
days and being one amongst them (Ethnographic research). Observing the social structure,
village structure, retail setting, purchase patterns, media consumption habits of the people
over there.
2. Depth Interviews: In-depth interviews with different stakeholders of the village and common
villagers of different castes and sections of the society.
3. Formatted Focussed Group Discussions: Intense FGDs with villagers of different castes and
strata.
4. Drawing insights: Drawing insights from the qualitative data generated from these tools was
made possible by the innovative means of writing a personal diary (every day) during the time
spent in the village collecting data. This gave the researcher the time and scope to reflect on
the first hand data by the way of transcribing every single detail of the day in one’s own manner
of comprehension
5. All other relevant details have been collected in the form of photographs and notional maps
5
PLACE OF STUDY
KARATTAI
Karattai had been chosen because of two reasons. 1. We wanted to understand if a coastal city
(Pondicherry) had any influence on the consumtion patterns in the village (Karattai) located
near coastal regions. 2. It was a village that was not very far off from the main city, had easy
accessability but was still a village. It had certain basic amenities, so it was a village that was
developing because of which the team wanted to understand what could be the other
problems that a village would face once the basic amenities are taken care of.
Location: The village taken up as our study, Karattai, is located about 60 KMs away from
Pondicherry in the North - East direction. It comes under the Vanur District. The Block Office for
this village is located in Koot Road. The ruling party is AIADMK. The village is spread across an
area of 2300 acres.
Accessibility: The best way to reach this village is by taking a bus from Pondicherry towards
Kiliyanur. The bus halts at Pudur junction where from where one needs to take a 7 seater auto
rickshaw and go on the road leading to Uppiliyur.
Landmark: The closest landmark to this place that is available on world maps is the Ancient Shri
Adinath Bhagwan Digamber Jain Temple located in Uppiliyur from which Karattai is only 3 KMS
away.
Latitude and Longitude:
DMS Latitude: 12° 7' 51.9456'' N
DMS Longitude: 79° 49' 4.0728'' E
Climate: This village lies in the tropical wet and dry region. The summer season lasts from April
to June and the maximum temperature is 41°C. The place is highly humid in the monsoon
period. They get occasional thunderstorms. Winters are warm and the nights do not get very
cold and reaches a low of 17°C.
TOPOGRAPHY
Geology and Soils: The village is a flat land with no forests and mountains. The maximum area
of the land is covered by red soil, black clay and coastal alluvial soil types which also exists in
Pondicherry.
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Land use: Land is majorly used for agriculture. As the water bodies in the district are not
perennial, the major sources of irrigation are tube wells, open dug wells and rain fed. The
remaining land is either under forest or is wasteland.
VILLAGE RESOURCES
Connectivity: Buses and rickshaws are the main sources of transportation. While buses connect
the junction to the main city, the rickshaws move in between villages and at the junctions
where the buses halt. The frequency of buses is quite good.
The time taken to travel from Pondicherry to the village is approximately 1hour, 30 minutes.
There is an occasional bus that goes right up to the village in the morning and in the evening.
Students of the village use this bus to go to neighbouring high schools. But the frequency of this
bus is very low and often carries more people than the usual number making it too
overcrowded. The bus is overcrowded so much so that the student hang out from the steps of
the bus and it is very unsafe. Villagers have complained about this problem to the president of
the village. Though the problem has been communicated, no action has been taken from the
higher authorities to resolve this problem.
Occupation:
Most villagers work on farms. Some of them have their own farms and work on them while a
few others get employed by MNREGA schemes and work for other farms. Animal husbandry is
also a source of income but is not very common and only 2 poultry farms exist.
The rest are employed under the MNREGA scheme where they go as labourers for construction
oriented work around the surrounding villages.
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Some households source their income by selling milk got from the cow owned by them. They
sell about 2-3 litres of milk everyday and earn about Rs.1000 per month. Daily about 50 litres of
milk is bought from these villagers.
Work support provided by MNREGA is not there through out the year and this helps earn only a
meager living. Workers who are aged often suffer from health issue usually leg aches but they
continue to work because of the lack of an alternative source of income.
Agriculture: The crops that are commonly grown in the region are paddy, pulses, coconuts,
cotton, chillies, sun flower and ground nuts etc. Apart from these Jasmine is also grown in the
village and is exported to neighbouring cities.
Village Amenities:
1. It doesn’t have a primary healthcare facility. If there is any sort of medical emergency,
villagers have to rush to the closest village, Uppiliyur to get treated. Anganwadi women
help to deliver babies.
2. They have a ration shop that supplies materials for the villagers but the timings are such
that they hinder with the work timing of the labourers.
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3. There is no bank or post office. Indian Bank comes to the village to distribute the wages
under the MNREGA scheme. There is a biometric machine used by the bank that
supports this distribution.
4. There is a government run school that has classes till 8th standard beyond which the
students have to travel to a larger village to study higher classes till 12 th standard.
5. There is a privately run school.
6. Most children go to schools till 8th and parents aspire to give their children good
education.
7. The closest marriage ceremony hall is also located in Uppiliyur and villagers travel from
Karattai to Uppiliyur to a perform marriages.
8. It is difficult for the villagers to get loans as the banks demands for collaterals which are
not easily available with the villagers.
9. There are only 2 kirana shops that exist and they have most of the commonly used
goods.
10. Sanitation is being taken care of such that individual toilets for every house are being
built
11. Alcohol shops in the vicinity areas and in the village have been closed.
Government Schemes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
MNREGA
4 goats per family are given to select households
Provision and construction of toilets for individual households
A select few have the privilege of getting a constructed house that is worth Rs.1,80,000
as part of cyclone relief fund and Green house fund
5. Grinder, mixer and fan are also distributed by the government
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10
- A newly constructed Bathroom
NGO- Hand-In-Hand: Computer education in this village is supported by this NGO where the
tutors teach children of the village and these students in turn take classes for the next set of
students. These classes are conducted in a room dedicated to these classes. Parents have very
high aspirations about their children’s education. This way the students are updated with the
latest technology. This doesn’t have a direct impact on the welfare of the villagers but will add
on as a long term benefit.
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Notional Map of Karattai
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Social Structure and Village Culture:
Like mentioned earlier, the total population of the village is around 1800. Let’s see how they
are split in terms of caste structure.
Caste
MBC
SC
BC
Total
Male
Female
1540
925
615
200
120
80
40
25
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Let’s also have a look at the age break-up of the population in terms of percentage:
0 - 10 yrs
11 -20 yrs
21 - 30 yrs
31-40 yrs
41 - 50 yrs
Above 50
yrs
15%
15%
15%
15%
10%
30%
Hinduism is the only religion followed in the village. In fact there were no households following
any other religion.
Caste System:
The dominant caste here is Vanniyar caste. Traditionally most Vanniyars are agricultural
labourers. The Vanniyars were classified as the Most Backward Caste after 1980s. Vanniyars are
the single largest community in Tamil Nadu.
There were also enough Mudaliars or the Upper caste people. They were employed as clerks
during the time of British rule and also worked as goldsmiths, later emerging as 'Landlords'. The
priest of the Vaishnavite temple over there belonged to this community.
Scheduled caste consisted of members mostly of Parayan and Sambava.
Village Structure:
There is a clear distinction in caste even in terms of village structure. People from different
castes don’t live in the same area. The SCs live a little far from the main or the central area of
the village. The BCs live in the road leading to the Vaishnavite temple. The MBCs form the
majority and occupy the main area of the village.
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Social norms:
It is pretty evident that the caste structure is still prevalent in the village. The luxury of entering
the premises of the temple is not extended to the SCs. Even during festivals and village fairs,
SCs are not allowed to enter the temple premises. They end up coming only till the gates of the
temple. The fact is that these people don’t question the existing practice and don’t really have a
problem to be treated the way they are. It has been the custom for several years and has been
passed on from generations. In fact, these people don’t even go inside the houses of the rest.
They are not part of their marriages or any other function. SC people stay in the area allotted to
them and their activities are restricted to that region. There is a temple exclusive for them in
the area belonging to them.
When the people from the upper castes were interviewed about the same, they had a view that
certain things were meant to be the way it is and changing these values and norms meant
questioning their religious beliefs and gave no logic for the same.
Marriages:
Inter-caste marriages are a strict no-no here. There have been instances of honour killings in
the nearby villages. So, people here hold their castes really high and it’s a symbol of their selfesteem.
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Even marriages within the same caste are a taboo. But with many people from the younger
generations moving to towns for their higher studies and jobs, things are slowly starting to
improve. After a lot of deliberations, people in the slightly higher income families have started
to give-in to the concept of love marriages.
Talking about marriages, it’s usually a one-day affair, with the wedding happening in the
morning followed by the reception in the evening. Receptions are usually accompanied by light
music by the local band. One of the complaints from almost all the people of the village was the
absence of any small community centre, where they can host marriages or family functions.
Hence, the marriages generally happen in the nearby village called Uppiliyur, which has
marriage halls or community centres, depending on their affordability.
Festivals:
Some of the famous festivals celebrated here include Deepavali, Pongal and Karthigai Deepam.
Aadi Peruku is one of the famous festivals here. Village fair happens during this time for 10
days. People in-and-around 10 villages flock here to be part of this grand event. This fair
witnesses a footfall of atleast 5000 every year and the number seems to be only growing year
after year. Several small stores are setup in the main area near the temple, where this fair
happens. There is also a temple chariot which is pulled around the village during this period.
This serves as a great tourist attraction as well.
For the first time in years, a minister of Vanur Taluk ( Reserved constituency), who is a SC by
birth, was allowed to enter the temple to inaugurate the fest. Though there were several
oppositions in the beginning, they had to bend the rules to accommodate the demands of a
minister. The Panchayat President was one of the primary reasons for making this happen and
this will be beginning of many things to follow.
Land ownership:
The BCs despite being the lowest in number owned majority of the land in the village. The SCs
were mainly daily wage earners in these farms or were part of the NREGA scheme. The MBCs
generally held small pieces of land and had one or two cattle and did a few other small
businesses.
Education:
One good thing about people from all these castes is that they are making their children go to
school and get formal education. They don’t mind sending their children to nearby towns for
higher education. In fact, a lot of their children have gone on to do their higher studies in places
like Pondichery, Trichy and Chennai. But a few families still restrain from sending their girl child
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for higher education to nearby town and villages due to the social stigma attached to sending a
girl outside the village. Again most of these families don’t have a fixed income and are thus not
able to afford the fees in colleges. Lack of centres for education of more than the fifth grade in
the village is a big drawback. The villagers would thus like to see a High school atleast in the
village in the near future.
Political affiliations:
The village being a Vanniyar belt, their political affiliations are very strong towards Paatali
Makkal Katchi(PMK), a Tamil political party headed by Dr. Ramados and it commands a major
share of votes in that region. PMK stands as party for and by the Vanniyar community. Over the
years, ADMK has been gaining in-roads into the same and the current Panchayat President and
the other Counsellors are from the ruling ADMK party.
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MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Newspapers:
There are no newspaper stalls in the village or any service from newspaper vendor who
supplies to the village. There is only one tea shop near the entrance of the village which stocks
two newspapers. The tea shop owner gets it from the neighbouring village of Uppiliyur and
supplies one to the Panchayat office and the Panchayat President’s house. Interested people
read from either of these places. None of the households actually subscribe for the
newspapers. Dinathandi and Dinamalar are the two newspapers that are popular here.
Radio:
Most of the villagers don’t own a transistor or a radio set. They generally listen to radio through
their mobile phones. When people gather in the evenings, they listen to radio in the stores in
the background. The radio keeps running in the tea shops and kirana stores throughout the day.
A lot of youngsters have now started to listen to radio through their mobiles while travelling.
Overall, radio is not the preferred choice of the villagers.
Cinema:
One of the biggest sources of entertainment for the men and youth of the village is cinema.
They either go to Dindivanam or Pondichery to catch up with latest movies every now and then.
Pirated movies are also played quite often through the local television. Most of the men and
young people in the village are updated about the recent Tamil movies. Women never go out to
watch movies. Young girls these days have started to go to theatres when accompanied by a
male member, which is a welcome change.
OOH:
A large part of their media consumption is done through OOH. Several social messages, election
campaigns and other relevant information are communicated through the walls of schools,
Panchayat office, PDS shops and houses. Several billboards were also seen majorly of Telecom
operators.
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Telephone/ Mobile:
There is not a single household in the village without a mobile phone. There is absolutely no
landline at all in the entire village. Vodafone, Airtel and Aircel are the preferred telecom
operators. There are around 4 to 5 vendors who sell prepaid cards. Prepaid cards of smaller
denominations are preferred. People are a lot familiar with several value added services like
Ringtones, Wallpapers etc. as well. There are no PCO/STD telephone booths at all in the village.
Television:
Thanks to the colour TV scheme by the previous Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Karunanidhi,
every house has a colour TV. Cable TV was first introduced in the village 10 years back. There
was only Sun TV, Jaya TV and K TV in the beginning. Now they are exposed to almost 80
channels. Interviewing the cable TV operator revealed that there were only 50 households who
have currently subscribed to cable TV. Most of them have gone for DTH connections with Sun
Direct being the most popular one. One of the major issues faced by the Cable TV operator is
that the number of subscriptions have fallen significantly with the advent of DTH and the
existing customers also keep defaulting on payments due to which he has been running on
losses and has been involved with other businesses to make up fr the same.
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Analyzing the viewership, it is seen that prime time viewership is predominantly dominated by
women who watch soaps like Nadaswaram on Sun TV. The men in the house prefer watching
regional news and old songs. Youngsters prefer watching movies, cricket or new songs.
Mahabaratha is one of the preferred programmes by people of all ages during the weekends.
Older men prefer watching old movies during the weekends. With a deluge of channels to their
service, people prefer swapping channels during ad breaks. Only youngsters seem to have a
little bit of ad recall. Others don’t really care about them.
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BRAND CONSUMPTION
There are only two retail stores in the entire village. They store basic FMCG products and a few
groceries. The shopkeeper stocks the products mainly from Dindivanam and sometimes
Pondicherry. This causes the shop keeper to incur an additional travel cost. The distribution
networks of the national brands don’t reach the village. Only recently, a few local brands have
started to get their goods every week to the village in an auto. The shop keeper gets a very low
margin on most of the products. The shop keeper has to buy the products by giving direct cash
but he gives credit to the villagers.
There are several spurious brands available which a similar packaging of popular brands such as
Ponds. Most of the villagers are unable to make out the difference and end up purchasing them
because of cheaper price.
Customers generally do not have too much brand loyalty. Their choices are driven by either the
latest advertisement or retailer recommendation. The grocery shopping is generally done by
the lady of the house. Youngsters are getting more and more brand conscious thought with the
influence of TV.
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Some of the major FMCG brands available are:
Soaps: Lux, Lifebuoy, Hamam, Cinthol
Detergents and Bars: Rin and Arasan
Oral Care: Close-up, Colgate, Pepsodent
Shampoo: Sunsilk, Clinic Plus,Chic, Dove (all sachets)
Biscuits: Milk Bikis, Parle-G, Tiger, Krackjack
There are no outlets for consumer durables in Karattai Village. The nearest option is
Dindivanam for basic electronic goods such as transistors, cell phones and radios and
Pondicherry for TVs, refrigerators and music systems.
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COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
One of the major issue that needs to be addressed in the village of Karattai is the problem of
unemployment. Agriculture is the primary occupation and more often than not the monsoon
fails, which forces people to incur losses. People keep doing small businesses every now and
then, but it is not sufficient to meet the growing needs.
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) aims to guarantee the right to work and
ensure livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage
employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do
unskilled manual work. They are paid anywhere between Rs.80 and Rs.100. Around 500 people
have enrolled themselves to be part of this scheme. Yet, the budget approved by the
government is not sufficient enough to make all those who have enrolled employable
throughout the year. Hence, a rotation policy is adopted to guarantee all those who have
enrolled a few days of employmet atleast. This has led to a lot of people being unemployed for
most part of the year, especially women.
Let’s now look at a few recommendations to tackle this problem:
Micro-Financing:
One of the major drawbacks for these villagers is the lack of easy availability of loans to these
small farmers. The luxury is restricted only to those who can pledge collateral to the bank and
doesn’t reach the bottom of the pyramid. Setting up small financial institutions which could
provide micro-finance to these farmers/workers would help. This would help the villagers in
taking up newer initiatives and would provide them with the necessary finance to start their
own venture or purchase a piece of fertile land in the neighbouring areas or buy cattle which
will serve as an additional income.
Skilled Labourers:
Since most of the adults in the villages are uneducated, it is necessary to impart them some skill
so that they become employable. Therefore, a provision for night schools or centres to train
these adults should be made. As a result of this, the people of the village would get the basic
skills and this would equip them well to take up certain more respectable jobs in the nearby
towns and cities.
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Cottage Industries:
Setting up of Cottage industries in the village. They need a self-sufficing model with which they
could help in earning their daily wages. Since the people of the villages are emotionally
attached to their houses and villages, such a kind of initiative could be taken up to provide
employment opportunities to the villagers. Another advantage with cottage industry is that
many members of the family can contribute, thereby making it a practically easy model that
could be implemented.
Vocational training courses for women :
Women in Karattai could be taught courses like stitching/knitting (considering there’s no tailor
in the village) or other such soft skills.
Self-Help Groups (SHGs):
If Micro-financing option is made avaliable, there can be a lot more of SHGs, thereby making
the women more self-sufficient. Probably, a model like ‘ShaktiAmma’ can be implemented as
well.
However, the challenge lies in effectively communicating these ideas to the people and make
them part of these activities. Hence the role of communication and the strategy has to be built
in such a way that initially the villagers are made aware of the benefits of these programmes
before making them part of it. Hence, choosing the right target audience at the right time
becomes an important aspect of our communication. The Panchayat President, Naatamai or the
Sarpanch, school headmaster and teachers, village health officers will be the key influencers in
effectively communicating the message and will be helping in convincing the people to be part
of these programmes.
Following are the ways to effectively communicating the message to the people:




One to one interaction
Street plays/ Nukkad Nataks
Door to door communication
Movie/Documentary screening
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CONCLUSION
Doing a project in the village, Karattai, was an enriching, a once in a lifetime experience. It was
absolutely exciting and refreshing in a unique way. In a country where a huge population lives
in the villages, MICA gave us an opportunity to learn and understand the villagers and the
customs, inhibitions, oppourunites and problems. We were totally amazed and touched by their
honesty and generosity.
We understood that Pondicherry had little influence on villagers of karattai when it came to
their consumption patterns. The patterns seemed to be more in sync with the patterns
common with other villages.
This project has helped us understand the rural life better. It also made us aware of their
unique needs and help us think of communication strams which can be moulded to fit into the
culture thus making a difference.
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