Governor signs Diwali school holiday bill into law
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Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill put forth by Queens pols that established Diwali as a holiday for city schools. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
After years of advocacy, the governor signed into law a bill that looks to make Diwali a holiday for New York City public school students.
On Tuesday night in Flushing, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the bill, which was sponsored by Queens electeds, State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar and State Senator Joseph Addabbo. The bill signing, although a historic moment for many Diwali observers in New York City, marks another event in a tenuous and sometimes confusing process to get the holiday on the books.
“For so long, many South Asian New Yorkers have had to celebrate their most important holidays in part, or late at night because parents worked and children were at school,” Hochul said at the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing. “I know that it's been difficult – this is an important meaningful holiday.”
“We are here today for one reason, to say, ‘No more,’” Hochul added.
Diwali, a major holiday celebrated by members of the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain faiths, as well as a number of other members of the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities, is a multi-day festival that celebrates the power of light over darkness.
The holiday is celebrated by the families of around 200,000 public school students in New York City, who were forced each year to choose between celebrating their faith or going to school.
The bill was a particular priority for Rajkumar, its lead and assembly sponsor.
“One year ago, I stood here on this stage, and said that I was going to do the impossible, I was going to need to add a school holiday in the city of New York,” she said. “And today, I'm proud to stand up for you and say we won,”
“We made history,” she added.
Rajkumar, the first South Asian and Hindu woman elected to the state legislature, pushed hard to get the bill passed in the waning hours of the last legislative session, her colleague Addabbo said, in part due to heavy enthusiasm from locals and advocates.
“We will be seen and heard and recognized as part of a gorgeous mosaic, that is our city and country,” Rajkumar said. “We finally said to over 600,000, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain Americans across New York City, we see you.”
Addabbo, who sponsored the bill on the Senate side, said during his remarks that “the wait is over.”
The wait for getting the governor’s signature was a long one.
Years of advocacy and unkept promises from elected officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, turned what many saw as a simple political gesture into something of a political mess.
On the campaign trail, then-candidate Adams promised he would make a Diwali school holiday on his first day in office, a promise he didn’t follow through on.
A little less than a year later, Adams stood alongside Rajkumar and Schools Chancellor David Banks and said that the task was a little more complicated than he had anticipated.
By law, the city’s Department Of Education is required to give students at least 180 days of instruction, and Adams said that the only way to implement the holiday would be to first find a different holiday to swap it with, a process that could only be done at the state level.
“We found a way to do it,” Adams said at that event. “Chancellor Banks and his team sat down looked at the requirement of school days and instead of looking from a place of deficit we look for a place of surplus, and because of that we were able to identify a way of using legislation partnering with the assemblywoman to identify the days that we can use to have this important holiday – a Diwali holiday without our young people missing days of school in the process.”
The initial draft of Rajkumar’s bill included the axing of Brooklyn-Queens Day and adding Diwali, but as the most recent legislative session came to a close, that stipulation was stripped from the bill due to some support for the little-known holiday.
State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar was the main sponsor of a bill that establishes Diwali as a holiday for city schools. Photo via Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
“There were some people who were passionate about Brooklyn-Queens Day, they didn't want to give it up,” Addabbo told the Eagle in June, declining to specify which legislators fought for the continuation of the holiday.
The final version of the bill did not include the elimination of Brooklyn-Queens Day, and didn’t identify a day to swap Diwali with, which Adams initially said was necessary. The final bill left it up to the city’s Department of Education to determine how the holiday would make it into the school’s calendar.
Those questions, exacerbated by celebrations over the bill’s passing from Rajkumar and others, led to confusion as to where the bill stood.
There was even confusion this year, with some locals assuming that the Diwali holiday was already set in stone earlier this month, when the holiday took place.
“I think there was confusion as to whether or not the governor had already signed the bill,” said Aminta Kilawan-Narine Founder of the South Queens Women’s March and a vocal Diwali holiday advocate. “I definitely think they're people who really did think it was a done deal, and to be fair, we were really close.”
The question that remained however, is without the stipulation that Brooklyn-Queens Day or some other school holiday would be swapped out for Diwali, how would Diwali be put into the 180-day schedule?
According to the recently released public school calendar for the 2024-2025 school year, Friday, Nov. 1 is currently marked as a day off for school students to observe Diwali – and all the other holidays remain intact.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education told the Eagle that next year the school system worked out in a way that Diwali could be added without infringing on the mandated 180-day schedule.
“When it falls on the weekdays, [Diwali] will be observed,” the spokesperson said.
As for future years, where the schedule may not allow for a Diwali holiday, the spokesperson said the department will “make sure we are compliant with the laws.”
Regardless of any remaining questions or hesitance, with the governor’s signing of the bill and some strong political weight behind it, even once-skeptical advocates were excited that students will have off for Diwali next year.
“I finally do feel comfortable saying affirmatively that Diwali will be a New York City public school holiday next year," said Kilawan-Narine. “I was one of the people that was like, ‘Well, it's not a done deal yet.’”
“Now I'm excited to finally say I do believe it's a done deal,” she added.
