The Banjara Ekta Sankalp Yatra-2026 From Savagad to Delhi: A Socio-Political Analysis

The Banjara Ekta Sankalp Yatra (July 5–27, 2026) was a 21-day, 7,000-kilometre march from Savagad to New Delhi demanding a unified national Scheduled Tribe status. The movement utilized the custom Banjara Ekta App to overcome geographic isolation and organise its population across 18 states. Ultimately, the Yatra transformed localised grievances into a unified pan-Indian consciousness, compelling federal policymakers to recognise the socio-political stake of the Gor-Banjara people. This paper examines the Banjara Ekta Sankalp Yatra (July 5–27, 2026), a historic 21-day, 7,000-kilometre march from Sevagad to New Delhi, to analyse modern nomadic tribe assertiveness in India. Historically criminalised by colonial rule and fragmented by post-colonial federal policies, the Gor-Banjara community faces severe systemic inequality due to conflicting state-level classifications (ST, SC, or OBC) and the institutional erasure of their native oral language, Gor Boli. [1, 2]. Using a mixed-methods digital ethnography approach, this study evaluates how the movement used the custom Banjara Ekta App to overcome geographical isolation and low literacy rates through audio-first interfaces and localised geo-spatial tracking. The findings demonstrate that digital tools allowed the community to bypass arbitrary state borders and build a unified national political identity.