Home to lakhs of tribals, Central Gujarat is witness to such incidents much more frequently than it would seem from newspaper headlines. If they go unreported, it is because of multiple factors: the authorities' inaccessibility, tribal ignorance and their apprehension of further atrocity.

District Superintendent of Police, Shamsher Singh, admits as much. ``It's impossible to even guess the percentage of such cases that come to light. But when they do, we take prompt and appropriate legal action,'' he says.

As an example, he cites the recent killing of an Adivasi by upper caste Patels in Por village. ``The culprits took possession of the body from the police and cremated it by claiming to behis relatives,'' Singh says, adding that the case would have gone unnoticed -- and the conniving policemen unpunished -- had the victim's wife not approached him personally.

However, it's not often that victims of class oppression muster up the courage to inform the police. That's why, Singh says, they're involving Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and anthropologists in interactive meetings with tribals -- one was held recently in Chhotaudepur -- to encourage them to report any sort of tyranny. Besides, he adds, they've also written to the sarpanchs of all the 1,400 villages in the district, asking them to contact him on atrocity cases.

That such activism comes not a day too early, is shown by the case of a Dhargaon village resident who was forced to make the rounds of the police station for months before she was allowed to register a rape case against her husband's employer, a Thakur. Or consider the case of Bhikhabhai Bajania, a tribal resident of Bhathuji Nagar, who was lynched, allegedly byPatels, for stealing a doodhi

from their farm.

Despite the media hullabaloo over the last-mentioned case, only three of the accused have been arrested by the city police so far.

While caste and class equations in Gujarat have always been tenuous, sociologists are hard-pressed to unanimously explain the increase in atrocities against tribals. Says N Rajaram, Head of M S University's Department of Sociology, ``A middle-class is just emerging among Gujarat's tribals. But right now, it is too weak to withstand the aggression perpetrated by the well-entrenched classes. Besides, there's the problem of leadership, which is why their problems do not get highlighted.''

According to Rajaram, ``The socio-economic backwardness of Adivasis -- mostly farm labourers and concentrated in the Chhotaudepur region -- is the largest single factor responsible for their victimisation. Their abject poverty prevents them from opening their mouths against the wealthy landlords who dominate their area.''

Jnanpith Awardwinner G N Devy, chairman of the Bhasha Research Centre, points out that the tribals' awareness of their rights was abysmal. ``They simply don't question police torture or the despotism of influential locals'', he says,``Moreover, police officials in these areas perceive them as punishment postings and often vent their frustrations on tribals. Besides, of course, implementation of law is so slack that crime is easier covered up, than punished.''

According to Mario Xavier of the Department of Psychology, ``It is the underprivileged and unprotected status of these people that motivates excesses and exploitation by the powerful lobbies.''