Origin

The Gawaria are community are a sub-group within the larger Banjara

Banjara

The Banjara are a class of usually described as nomadic people from the Indian state of Rajasthan, North-West Gujarat, and Western Madhya Pradesh and Eastern Sindh province of pre-independence Pakistan...

 community of India. According to their own traditions, the community is descended from three brothers, Tapasvi Singh, Lakhi Singh and Bhumi Singh. These brothers lost their land, and took to peddling goods and services. The Gawaria were a nomadic community, travelling throughout North India selling their wares. With the building of the railways in the 19th Century, the Gawaria had to abandon their traditional occupation. The community is now settled on the outskirts of villages and towns involved in wage labour, petty trade and the scrap business. They are distributed all over North India, in particular in the states of Haryana

Haryana

Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...

, Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

, Punjab

Punjab (India)

Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...

 and Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

. They speak the Marwari language, although most also understand Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

.

The Gawaria are divided into two sub-groups, the Rajput Gawaria and the Dharamput Gawaria. In their system of social hierarchy, the Rajput group is considered superior. These two sub-groups are endogamous, and there is no intermarriage. The Gawaria are further divided into clans, known as gotra

Gotra

In the Hindu society, the term Gotra broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. Panini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram , which means "the word gotra denotes the progeny beginning with the son's son"...

s. Each gotra claims descent from a common ancestor, and marriages are strictly forbidden. There main clans are the Meghawat, Bindrawat, Kurra, Athvia , Jharabala and Dhamsod.

Present Circumstances

The Gawaria are now a settled community, and many in the rural areas are agricultural labourers. While those in the cities are wage labourers. A small number have taken to trade, and a smaller number have taken to education, and become professional. The community’s distinct dialect marks it out from neighbouring communities, and they tend to be residentially segregated. They are entirely Hindu, and worship local deities such as the Gurgaon wali mata.