The contribution of rural women in Imphal East Manipur in socio-political, historical and economic sectors are significant. With the help of two key factors- education and empowerment, an attempt has been to evaluate the key concerns regarding the barriers and constraints of empowerment; and bring focus to interventionist schemes related to achieving the goal of holistic empowerment for rural women of Manipur. The paper discusses scholarly narratives of ‘empowerment’ in the rural sense and brings a comparative approach with the case of rural women in Manipur. A stratified random sampling procedure of 50 educated and 50 uneducated women from Imphal East helps in answering the contemporary issues of empowerment, and coping mechanisms which limit their drive to become liberated and empowered have been discussed.

Empowerment; Rural women; Marginalisation; Education; Independence