Is Harela always on 16 July?

Usually. The date follows Kark Sankranti, a solar event that falls on or about 16 July, but it does move: in 2023 the Uttarakhand government issued a fresh notification, approved by the Governor, shifting the Harela holiday from 16 to 17 July.

It grew out of the farming year in the Kumaon hills, where the first day of Shravan opens the monsoon sowing, and an 1884 gazetteer already describes the ritual in detail. No founder or founding act has ever been recorded for it, and nobody claims to have started it.

Harela

Next celebratedFriday, July 16, 2027

On Harela, elders place cut green shoots on the heads of the young as a blessing. The shoots come from grain sown in a basket of earth about ten days earlier, timed to the start of the monsoon sowing.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 3, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJuly 16

OBSERVED INIndia

CATEGORYCulture

SUBCATEGORYRegional

ORIGIN

Historical Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A paper trail that begins with an 1884 gazetteer.

No founder, founding act or first observance is documented for Harela, an agrarian custom of the Kumaon hills tied to the sun's entry into Cancer. The earliest description found is in E.T. Atkinson's gazetteer of the Himalayan districts, printed in 1884, which names the day and describes seeds sown in a basket of earth, clay images of Shiva and Parvati, and the cutting of the green shoots.

Read the 1884 gazetteervia archive.org

INTRO

The 1884 description a Kumaoni household would recognise

A gazetteer of the Himalayan districts printed in 1884 records that the sun crossed into Cancer on 15 July 1878, and notes that the day was known also as the Harela sankrant. Its compiler, E.T. Atkinson, then set down what the cultivators did with it.

They sowed barley, maize, pulse and mustard in a basket of earth, placed small clay images of Shiva and Parvati among the new sprouts, and on the day itself cut the green stems and wore them. That is Harela, and a household getting ready for it now would recognise almost every step.

The word means day of green in Kumaoni, and for most of its documented life the festival was a household affair. It is now a public holiday across Uttarakhand, written into the state government's own annual notification.

What the record holds instead of a founder is a farming ritual already old enough to be catalogued as routine, and specific enough that the seeds, the clay figures and the cut shoots are all still there now that the day sits on a government holiday schedule.

ORIGINS

Harela history

INTRODUCTION

Harela is fixed to a solar event rather than a phase of the moon. It falls on Kark Sankranti, the day the sun crosses into Cancer, which is also the first day of the month of Shravan. That is why the festival keeps landing within a day of the same square on the Gregorian calendar.

For a farmer in the Kumaon hills that date is a starting gun. Shravan opens the monsoon and the sowing cycle, and the festival is kept to pray for the rain and the harvest that follow.

CHAPTER 01

Not one festival but three

The July celebration is the one that is still widely kept. A scientist at the G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment records two more, a Chaitra Harela in March or April and an Ashwin Harela in October or November, each pinned to a different moment in the farming year.

Those two are now kept far less often. The same account attributes the decline to changing cropping choices, from food grains to fruit, to climate uncertainty that disrupts the traditional sowing schedules, and to knowledge that has not passed down the generations.

CHAPTER 02

Into print, then into the holiday schedule

In 2005 the journal Asian Agri-History published "Harela: The Farm Festival of Uttaranchal" by D Bhatt and J C Bhatt. The journal's abstract describes a day kept to symbolize harmony between man and nature, and to pray for a successful harvest of the rainy season crops.

The larger change came from the state. Harela appears in Uttarakhand's list of public holidays for 2021, set for 16 July, and The Pioneer reported that the government had declared a holiday on the festival for the first time that year.

Nobody knows who began the custom. Between the cultivators Atkinson described and a household sowing seed for July 2026 sit a journal paper and a government notification, and a ritual whose steps are still broadly the ones he listed.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Kark Sankranti falls on 15 July

The gazetteer records the solar event Kumaon keeps as Harela arriving on 15 July that year.

Atkinson writes the ritual down

Volume II of the gazetteer of the Himalayan districts describes the basket, the clay images and the cut shoots at page 870.

A journal paper names the day

Asian Agri-History publishes "Harela: The Farm Festival of Uttaranchal" by D Bhatt and J C Bhatt.

A benchmark Harela planting

Uttarakhand's Harela plantation drive that year becomes the comparison point for the drives that follow.

Harela enters the holiday list

The festival appears in Uttarakhand's public holidays for the year, set for 16 July 2021.

The state's biggest Harela planting

A government release calls that year's drive the largest plantation effort in Uttarakhand during a single festival, reaching every district.

BY THE NUMBERS

Harela by the Numbers

813,000+: Saplings planted, Harela 2025
~200,000: Saplings planted, Harela 2016
13: Districts in the 2025 drive
1 million: Sapling target, Harela 2026

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Harela

Elders read the day for the season ahead

Natural indicators such as bird behaviour and cloud patterns are read at Harela as an indigenous almanac for the months of farming that follow.

The day off stops at the state's own offices

Harela does not appear anywhere in the 2026 holiday list for central government offices located in Uttarakhand, which runs to 17 gazetted and 35 optional days. State offices close for it; central ones in the same state do not.

An 1884 gazetteer compared it to wearing the rose

Having described the cutting of the green stems, Atkinson wrote that the custom was in every way similar to the practice of wearing the rose, observed in Great Britain.

Some villages declare sacred forests on the day

Harela is used in places to designate Dev-van, patches of forest set aside as sacred.

There is no fixed number of seeds

Households sow usually seven, five or eleven types depending on the community and what is available that season, from wheat and barley to horse gram, paddy and mustard.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Harela

STAKES

Activists marked Harela 2026 by staying away from it.

Uttarakhand now runs its largest tree planting of the year on Harela, which turns the festival into an annual audit of the government's own environmental record. In July 2026 activists and residents stayed away from the official events over the felling of hundreds of trees for a Dehradun highway, and the environmentalist Anoop Nautiyal asked, "How can we celebrate Harela when hundreds of trees are being cut in Dehradun alone?"

FORECAST

The basket is a measurement as well as an offering

The shoots are read as well as blessed. A scientist at the Himalayan environment institute in Almora records the belief that the bigger and lusher the harela is, the better the coming crop will be, and notes that the same sowing doubles as a traditional seed preservation and sorting practice.

STATUS

A village rite on a government holiday list

Very few household farming rituals end up in a state's holiday schedule. Harela is one of only two entries on Uttarakhand's 2026 public holiday list drawn from the state's own folk calendar, the other being Igas-Bagwal in November.

GOOD TO KNOW

Harela Around the World

Kumaon, Uttarakhand

The festival's heartland, where the day is kept on 16 July under the name Harela

Kangra, Shimla and Sirmour, Himachal Pradesh

The same day is kept under the names Hariyali and Rihyali

Jubbal and Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh

Here the festival is called Dakhrain

Bhimtal, Nainital district

The town holds a Harela Mela running from 16 to 21 July

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Harela

Sow a basket of grain before the day

Fill a small basket or a leaf bowl with earth, sow grain and pulses, and water them so they sprout in time. Down To Earth's account uses maize, sesame, black gram, mustard and oats, sown nine days before the festival.

CUT

Cut the shoots and pass on the blessing

On the day the sprouts are cut, and the elders of the house place them on the heads of the younger members. Traditional chants wishing prosperity and well-being go with the gesture.

SHAPE

Shape the clay figures called dikare

Make small clay idols of Shiva, Parvati and Ganesha, known as Dikare or Dikars, and set them among the sprouts to be worshipped. In the 1884 account they went in the day before the shoots were cut.

COOK

Cook the festival spread

Kheer, puwa, puri, rayata and chhole are among the dishes prepared for Harela in Uttarakhand. Make one of them and hand it round the way the cut shoots are handed round, to neighbours, friends and relatives.

VISIT

Visit the Harela Mela at Bhimtal

Bhimtal, in Nainital district, holds a Harela Mela from 16 to 21 July. Time a trip to the hills for that week and the festival becomes a public event rather than a household one.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Harela?

1 / 8

Which astronomical event fixes the date of Harela?

Answer

Yes, in Uttarakhand. The state's General Administration Department notification of 24 December 2025 lists Harela among the public holidays declared across the state for 2026, set for 16 July.