The Dard people are an ethnic group found predominantly in northern Pakistan, north west India, and eastern Afghanistan. They speak the Indo-Aryan Dardic languages. The largest populations are in Gilgit–Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and in Kashmir, India. There are smaller populations in Ladakh, India and eastern Afghanistan. The Kashmiri people are the largest group, with over 5.5 million members.
Parpola (1999, p. 189) identifies "Proto-Dardic" with "Proto-Rigvedic", suggesting that the Dards are the linguistic descendants of the bearers of proto Rigvedic culture ca. 1700 BC, pointing to features in certain Dardic dialects that continue peculiarities of Rigvedic Sanskrit, such as the gerund in -tvī.
Herodotus (III. 102–105) was the first author to refer to Dards (calling them "Dadikai"), placing their location between Kashmir and Afghanistan.
During Swati rule, the Dard people predominantly followed the Kalash religion and frequent small-scale jihad against Dards may have been a routine.