The Garha, referred as Gaur and occasionally Gaud, or Gour are a community or caste found in the Indian states of Delhi NCR Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand.,Punjab
History and origin
The Garha have 51 sub-divisions, known as biradaris. Some of these are based on territorial groupings and some on the sects and castes they belonged to, prior to their conversion to Muslim and Sikh. Their main biradari is the Gaur Brahmin. Some Garha sub-groups claim descent from the Hindu Rajput. But most of Gada groups are descent from the Gaur Brahmin community, and claim Gada is the khadi boli transformation of the original Gauda.
The Garha have a caste association, called the Anjuman Garha (Garha association), whose primary purpose is to look after their socio-economic welfare. The association runs schools imparting Social activity and education, as well as a boarding house for poor boys. They live in multi-caste villages, occupying their own quarters and they are well educated as well as powerful.
The community comprises mostly peasants called Nambardaar, Gour, Padhaan, Zamindaar, concentrated in the Doab Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar region of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Haridwar District of Uttarakhand and Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana but the majority of them lives on Behat road of Saharanpur. Each of their settlements contains a village-based caste council, known as a biradari panchayat, which acts as an instrument of social control and resolves intra-community disputes. In terms of religion, they are fairly orthodox Sunni Muslims, and have customs similar to other neighbouring Muslim peasant castes. Garha is also in Sikh religion The Garha speak both Urdu, Punjabi and the local Khari boli dialect. Cast population approximately 5000000.