Raising a united voice against the "autocratic" attitude of the forest department, over 5,000 cultivators of forest land of the eastern tribal belt gathered at a 'sammelan' at Lalbag Tekri in Godhra in Gujarat and took an oath en masse not to give give up their right over their land. These cultivators from Panchmahals, Dahod, Vadodara, Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts have been cultivating and living on forest land for decades.