Until recently, Diwali in America was a quiet, flickering light celebrated in living rooms, temple halls, and the occasional suburban backyard, but largely invisible to the mainstream. For families like that of Rajeev Pahuja, who grew up in Hamden, Connecticut, during the 1970s, it meant living in a delicate split-screen reality. Autumn meant football games and Halloween on one side; sparklers and diyas on the other.
“I didn’t get to celebrate as much when I was a kid,” Pahuja recalls. He and his sister learned early what it meant to straddle two worlds, to hold one identity in public and another at home. “I’ve lived my whole life as one side being Indian, and then one side being American.”
That tension so familiar to many immigrant families is beginning to shift. In 2024, drawing on the quiet confidence of a new generation of Indian Americans, Pahuja helped lead an unlikely campaign to have Connecticut formally recognize Diwali as a state holiday. No political background. No corporate backers. Just a sense that the time had come.
When Governor Ned Lamont signed the bill in June, Pahuja could hardly contain his joy. “We’re the basketball capital of the world, we’re the pizza capital of the world,” he said, “and we’ll become the Diwali capital of the world.”
The law took effect October 1.
Such recognition doesn’t happen overnight. Pahuja admits the process was steeped in explanations and persuasion helping legislators understand why a festival half a world away holds deep meaning for millions of Americans here. “There’s still a ways to go,” he says. “But I think we’re starting to see it.”
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He’s right. As of this week, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and California have all codified Diwali as a state holiday creating a framework for excused absences or paid leave for students and workers who wish to celebrate. The designations are largely symbolic; government offices and schools need not close. But symbolism, in this case, carries weight. It signals belonging.
Across the country, other cities and states have already made ceremonial gestures—a “Diwali Day” proclamation here, a public school closure there (New York City being the most prominent). Still, this new wave of legislation marks something different: an institutional acknowledgment that South Asian life and spirituality are woven into the fabric of American society.
Diwali known in Sanskrit as Deepavali, the “row of lamps” is many things at once. To Hindus, it may recall Lord Ram’s triumphant return to Ayodhya after defeating the demon Ravana, the city illuminated in welcome. Others honor the day Lord Krishna vanquished Narakasura, or the new year ushered in by the goddess Lakshmi’s grace.
For Jains, Diwali commemorates Mahavira’s spiritual liberation; for Sikhs, it is Bandi Chhor Divas, marking the release of Guru Hargobind Ji and fifty-two kings from imprisonment. Each story, luminous in its own way, circles the same ancient truth: that light dispels darkness, that knowledge triumphs over ignorance, that compassion has the last word.
In India, the week is a feast of color homes cleaned and glowing, sweets exchanged, laughter spilling into courtyards. In the diaspora, the rituals are quieter, adapted to the rhythm of school schedules and corporate calendars. And that’s precisely why state recognition matters: it gives space for joy to breathe in public.
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Across the country in California home to the largest Indian American population in the U.S. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a similar bill this week. For many, the timing felt almost poetic: the state’s official acknowledgment arriving just as this year’s Diwali season begins.
For Samir Kalra, policy director at the Hindu American Foundation, the news struck a deeply personal chord. Raised in Fremont, that bustling East Bay heart of Desi America, Kalra remembers Diwali as a communal joy music, sweets, and a palpable sense of belonging. But the new law, he says, changes something subtle but profound.
“As a father of two young girls, it’s really important,” he explained. “Now we can go to school districts and ask them to take the day off every year. We won’t have to choose between celebration and obligation.”
His foundation helped shepherd the legislation in all three states, offering testimony, gathering letters of support, and translating cultural pride into political language. “These are no longer just ceremonial resolutions,” Kalra said. “They’re actual laws. And that shows how far the community has come in sophistication, in advocacy, in confidence.”
Pennsylvania was first to take the leap. In early 2024, it became the nation’s first state to officially enshrine Diwali in its holiday calendar, led by Arvind Venkat, the state’s first Indian American legislator. For him, the milestone was deeply personal.
“When I was growing up, Diwali was an intimate thing,” he said something kept within family walls. “To now see it recognized by government, to see it spoken aloud in the public square that’s extraordinary. It’s part of the immigrant story.”
Venkat has hosted Diwali celebrations for his constituents for years, but he’s quick to note that this is not only a Hindu victory. Pennsylvania’s Nepali and Bhutanese communities also observe Tihar, their own form of the festival. The message, he insists, is one of shared light. “We’re recognizing something that unites all of us,” he said. “Here in Pennsylvania, where our founding ideals are about welcoming all, that means something.”
Even beyond religious lines, Diwali has a way of drawing people in. Razin Karu, a Muslim and the executive director of Pennsylvania’s governor’s advisory commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander affairs, speaks of it as a season of joyful gathering.
“It’s something that connects everyone in India,” he said good food, bright clothes, music, laughter. For Karu, its beauty lies in its universality. “Diwali’s message is simple but profound: light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, hope over despair. Those values belong to every civilization.”
And perhaps that’s what the growing recognition of Diwali in America really signals not just political progress, but a spiritual acknowledgment that light is a shared inheritance.
In a season so often defined by division, there’s something quietly radical about that: the idea that a celebration born in ancient India could, in its own luminous way, help illuminate what it means to belong in modern America.
