The Bangali may refer to a Scheduled Caste found in northern India. They are one of the many nomadic groupings found in India, and have customs similar to other nomadic communities such as the Kanjar.
Origin
The Bangali are semi-nomadic tribal grouping, who are said to be Sansiya by origin. They are said to have separated from the Sansi parent group when they took up snake charming. The majority of the Bangali are now settled, occupying their settlements of reed huts at the edge of established villages. They are found mainly in the Doab region, with two clusters, one in Muzaffarnagar District in the villages of Bhokaredhi, Kamhera, and Kithora and the other in Bijnor District, in the villages of Raoli and Seemla Fatehpur. The Bangali speak their own dialect, which contains substantial Punjabi loanwords.
In Punjab, the Bangali are also known as Sapela, Sipado or Jogi, and are traditionally associated with snake charming. Like many other nomadic peripatetic castes, the Bangali claim a Rajput origin. In this new environment, the community took to living by hunting and trapping. Denzil Ibbetson considered the Bangali simply to be a sub-group of the Kanjar community. In Punjab, they are found mainly in the districts of Jalandhar and Gurdaspur, and they speak Punjabi.