Caste politics and redistribution: Evidence from Uttar Pradesh

This survey based study was held in 35 districts (250 villages) of Uttar Pradesh. Our team stayed for 1 day in each village and conducted several activities. In this survey we had two type of samples. One is for household survey and another for village survey (based on participatory rural appraisal).

{From top to bottom: Best trainee award to Rashmi and Santosh given by Atulesh, village survey, household survey, team always utilize free time, survey and village mapping, trying to get answer in question related to how political parties redistributed money and public services among three classes of society (question is asking to distribute money among three plates representing three classes; a perfect lichter scale)}

When they were searching for life, Morsel was there

Climate change is the biggest debate in the world and flood is one example of its impact. Morsel with Indian statistical Institute (Delhi) and Delhi School of Economics worked in Bihar, a very politically active state, which hit hard by flood last year. Kosi River changed its course and claims thousands life. Our team worked there to find impact on social and economic life of villagers due to said flood.

{From top to bottom: Professor Rohini Somanathan (Delhi School of Economics) and Sarubh Srivastava (Morsel) discussing with the villagers about their problems after Kosi River flood. Villagers made these sculptures. Where to go: Prof. Rohini, Atulesh and Saurabh, villagers are working on a bridge, flood impact: a house ruined, we have no house: villagers in Murliganj district, Oh God! What happened: Prof. Rohini in poorvi godwari Village, flood impact: peope have only boat to get home, flood gives some employment too, ved is filling a questionnaire during pilot survey in Lachchmipur village (Madhepura district)

This is how we found Bihar after flood in Kosi river

We were in Bihar to collect different data. When Morsel team(Bhartendu, Atulesh, Abhijeet and others) entered the state, sight was horrible. Most of the bridges were drowned deep into the flood water. Some of them were broken badly.
See these pics and get to know that how tough it was to work in these areas of Bihar. But still our project team did an excellent work and provided good results.

Campaigns to Influence Voting Behavior in India

Project Overview: With young democracies facing challenges across the developing world, efforts are underway to mobilize voters in order to make elected officials more accountable for delivering results. Unfortunately, we observe that in many places, voters do not seem to use candidates' performance or policy priorities as their key criteria. Beyond these observations, little rigorous evidence exists to explain individuals' voting behavior in low-income countries, or how voters' actions can improve government outcomes. Does voting behavior based on ethnicity, caste or gender outweigh voting based on issues and performance in poor, rural communities? Can voter mobilization or education campaigns lead to more accountable government? These questions are currently being addressed using experimental data that compares the behavior of voters in randomly selected villages exposed to a voter campaign with the behavior of voters in a comparable set of villages that were not included in the campaign. Several campaigns were carried out by a local NGO to test the influence of interventions such as entertainment, "dialoguing," community meetings, and posting materials on voting behavior.
To see whether campaigns could induce voters to hold corrupt officials accountable, one campaign provided an anti-corruption message along with publicly-available information about incumbents' performance in office. Another campaign focused on reducing caste-based voting, by helping communities identify issues of importance to them and encouraging people to vote based on those issues rather than for parties associated with their castes. Finally, a female voter mobilization campaign was designed to measure whether election outcomes would be more representative of women's priorities if more women voted.
Policy Relevance:
The results of this evaluation will provide valuable information about rural voters' behavior. In addition, the estimated impacts of various voter education/mobilization campaigns will suggest ways for governments and NGO's to increase communities' capacity to hold their elected leaders accountable for their performance.
Courtesy- JPAL (http://www.povertyactionlab.com/)

Meet with our base team--

Time to push in field (Archan, Babita, Suchitra, Kamini, Lalji, Ved, Harsh, Susheel, Atulesh, Neeraj-left to right)


Memories…

Atulesh Kumar
Education-
Post Graduation in I.T.I
Experience-
8 Years
Work detail-
· 7 years with Akhil Bhartiya Gramodyog Sewa Sansthan, Baharaich.
· One year with Sarthi Development Foundation, Lucknow
· One year with “Morsel” Lucknow.
Knowledge Domain:
· Save motherhood and child survival by CRS.
· Family Planning by SIFSA.
· Human Literacy Program
· Field Survey through Participatory Rural Appraisal
· Organization need based training program

Hey, Its great experience working with MORSEL. Our last project was “Impact of rural transport infrastructure on poverty alleviation & employment: Evidence from UP”. This project was based on PMGSY (a Government of India program). I cannot forget a village of Hardoi District and its villagers. When we reached in village, namely Baghauramal, villagers they would not take part in any type of meeting or activities related to government’s work because they are most marginalized community in whole district. My team faced biggest challenge that day because we tried to convince them about one hour but no one even wants to hear us. Then we tried our formula to chose a volunteer and then ask some question besides questionnaire and try to choose a person, who is trying to be smart. Then focus will be on one person and then slowly you can move on questionnaire and whole gathering. This trick is always working. It worked in Baghauramal also.

Neeraj Kumar Verma
Education-
Post Graduation in Population Study & Rural Development
Experience-
1 Year
Work detail-
With MORSEL

Hi, I worked in “Impact of rural transport infrastructure on poverty alleviation & employment: Evidence from UP” project with MORSEL. In this project I traveled around 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh. This was the great experience for me and real challenge. Because, I had had to convince a mob of 100-150 people and collect right information from them as they used to think that we are from a government office. And started to tell all the problems of village and always looked desperate to get a scheme benefit. We found lot of difficulties during survey but due to better management, we solved them so quickly. However traveling was the big task for us & in those villages which have no road. If I would go through my survey village, I would say Pilwankhera (Hardoi District) was the toughest village. Villagers did not cast their votes in last assembly election, so it was in limelight since 1 year. When my team entered in the village, no one wants to entertain us. Villagers refused to come in our meeting. Then we talk to an educated person of the village and convince him that we were from a research company and we were going to prepare a report. On that report government would bring development in your villages. Then with the help of that person, we went door to door. We said to villagers, “we selected your village and came here from 600 Km to check all the work. And after one hour there were about 100 people in our meeting. This incidence gave us height of confidence that we are the best….

Kamini Sahu
Education-
Post Graduation in English & Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Application
Experience-
3.5 Year
Work detail-
· 2 years with Grameen Vikas & Viklang Seva Samiti (Sitapur District) as office manager
· 6 months at Sarthi Seva Sansthan in voter awareness project.
· 2 months with CSDS in Post Poll Survey (Bahraich District)
· 2 months with Central Study Developing Society, Delhi in youth survey (District Barabanki)
· 6 months with MORSEL in Road survey on PMGSY.

Hi, “Impact of rural transport infrastructure on poverty alleviation & employment: Evidence from UP” project gave us a good opportunity to learn how to change a mob in a task oriented meeting. I want to share a experience of village, namely Bahrampur Khera (Shajahanpur District). We reached in village and found we cannot do meeting because of the dispute related to Mid Day Meal scheme. One BDC member and MDM care taker alleging each other & on this issue whole village bifurcated in rival groups. First, we tried to understand the situation then directly discuss about our task with BDC member and then MDM care taker. After one hour they became ready to come in our but they said very harshly that they are not going to support in arranging the meeting. But we went door to door and tell both are parties are coming in the meeting and after 1.30 hour about 70 people were at the meeting place (chosen by us). We had done a successful meeting here. Along this village we faced some more problems like one time our bike punctured, then we towed it about 3 KM. One time we forced to cross water logging land etc… but we can say proudly that this project gave us a great experience about rural life.

Lalji Yadav
Education-
Pursuing PHD in Social Work (Lucknow University)
Experience-
1 Year
Work detail-
6 months with MORSEL in Road survey on PMGSY and various data collection work.

Hi, in this project my team done a done a great job. With lot of difficulties I find this was my best performance. I also want to share a experience of a village, where I learn how perfectly someone can mobiles people for one task. Village, namely Jungel No. 11 (Lakimpur District), is about 50 KM away from Block headquarter. We had to cross a muddy road to enter in the village. When we reached in village, we faced our first surprise. When we were on the road, we thought this should be most underdeveloped village in UP, but we saw most of households have cell phones. When we arranged meeting, 50-60 people were gathered at one place but my team started to get opposite answers & villagers were giving us a sense that we are totally fool. 2-3 villagers started to use corrupt language. Then we chosen educated and old person and convince him and brief him about our task. We told him that we are not from govt. office then after 15 minutes of our discussion he became ready to support us. With the help of him, we started our meeting again and at last we finished our meeting successfully.

Suchitra Viashya
Education-
MA in Sociology
Experience-
3.5 Year
Work detail-
· 1 year with Mahila Samakhya on women empowerment program (Sitapur District)
· 1 year with Sahbhagi Sikhan Sansthan on community participation program (Sitapur District)
· 6 months at Sarthi Seva Sansthan in voter awareness project.
· 6 months in Sawashakti (Sitapur District) for documentation.
· 6 months with MORSEl in road project.

Hi, I worked in field with Lalji, so my experience is same as him. But I want to share a experience about a village, namely Hazaripurwa (Kanpur Dehat). When we reached in the village, we found that about one week ago somebody murdered in Pradhan’s home. So no villagers dared to attain meeting. We directly discuss about our task to Pradhan. With his help we went door to door & tried to convince villagers. We almost spent 10 minutes in one house. After spending 3 sweaty hours in village some people gathered at temple. And when we started our meeting, after 10 minutes there was about 70-80 villagers, who were listing and answering us. In this meeting we used our old techniques related to unlocking people and ice breaking for getting answers.

Richa Vaishya,
Education-
MA in English Literature, BA in Economics, Diploma in Computer Application
Experience-
1 Year
Work detail-
· 6 months with Sahbhagi Sikhan Sansthan on community participation program (Sitapur District)
· 6 months with MORSEl in road project.

Hi, I am youngest persons in all teams but I enjoyed most during whole project. Even in Jaselmer village of Kanpur Dehat, I towed the mo-bike because it was punctured. But at last we gave good results and this was my aim to join this project. I learnt lot of things & traditions about rural life.
Good luck to all…………..

Susheel Kumar
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Babita Soni
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Why corrupts and goons are wining election in India?