Indians call for Diwali to become public holiday in Australia

Australia’s Indian community is renewing calls to add a new day to the country’s official public holidays.

Australia’s Indian community is renewing calls for Diwali to join the list of the country’s official public holidays in every state and territory.

The annual festival of lights, which falls this year on October 31, is the most important holiday in the Hindu calendar.

There have been calls for a number of years for Australia to recognise more public holidays like Diwali, Lunar New Year and Eid, in addition to those that mark western Christian traditions, to reflect a growing multicultural population.

Hindu Council of Australia president Sai Paravastu told 9News there were hundreds of thousands of people in Australia who celebrated Diwali.

“Hindus have come from 32-plus countries to Australia and call Australia home,” he said.

“This would give [others] an opportunity to use the one day off to understand what these people are doing and they can visit our temples to see what we do. It gives them the opportunity to understand us more.”

Diwali celebrations at Federation Square. Picture: Tamati Smith/NCA NewsWire

Federal Labor MP Andrew Charlton backed calls for state and territory governments to recognise Diwali as a public holiday earlier this month, saying in the last two decades, “the whole of Australia has fallen in love with Diwali”.

“From Darwin to Hobart, people right across Australia celebrate Diwali as one of the most joyous events of the year and the reason for that is because behind all the colour and movement and lights and food and celebration, Diwali is a recognition of fundamental values,” the Parramatta MP told parliament.

“It’s what has made the Indian diaspora in Australia such an incredibly important part of the Australian community and so today is a good opportunity to recognise the importance of Diwali in the Australian annual calendar.”

The number of Indian-born people living in Australia was 753,520 as of July 2022, more than doubling in 10 years, according to the Department of Home Affairs.

After the UK, the Indian-born population is now the second-largest migrant community in Australia, equivalent to 9.8 per cent of Australia’s overseas-born population and 2.9 per cent of the total population.

Anthony Albanese at Blacktown’s Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Temple. Picture: David Swift/NCA NewsWire

The median age of Indian-born migrants was 35.9 years old, with males outnumbering females 54.2 per cent to 45.8 per cent.

According to the 2021 Census, 2.7 per cent of Australian population practices Hinduism.

Christianity decreased by one million people between 2016 and 2021 but was the most common religion representing 43.9 per cent of the population, followed by no religion on 38.9 per cent, Islam on 3.2 per cent and Buddhism 2.4 per cent.

A report from the Lowy Institute last year noted that Australia’s current public holidays represent western Christian traditions despite only a quarter of Australians attending church once a year.

The think tank argued adding more public holidays to Australia’s annual calendar would reframe the country’s reputation as a “western outpost on the edge of the Indo-Pacific” and would serve as a strong message to the rest of the world.

“In an era where concerns about illiberalism and intolerance across the globe are growing, it would be a powerful symbolic statement from a western liberal democracy,” it said.

“Rather than fostering division, more public holidays would create a greater sense of unity by encouraging greater societal understanding of different beliefs and practices, normalising cultural pluralism in Australia.”

Originally published as Indians call for Diwali to become public holiday in Australia