Speaker says a Diwali school holiday is coming – but is it such a sure thing?

A rally in support of a bill from Queens Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar that would make Diwali a school holiday in New York City was held in January. This week, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie committed to passing legislation that would recognize the holiday statewide. File photo via Rajkumar

By Ryan Schwach

The promise of a Diwali school holiday in New York City has never been closer after state legislative brass committed to making the long-fought change to the school calendar on Wednesday. But with only a handful of days left in the legislative session, hurdles remain.

With seven days left in the state’s legislative session, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie appeared to commit to passing a bill introduced last year by Queens Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, which would make Diwali a school holiday, replacing Brooklyn-Queens Day on the school calendar. However, the last-minute legislative push, as well as talk of amendments to the bill, could lead to complications to the bill’s passage.

But, this week, advocates remained cautiously optimistic that the recognition they have long fought for may finally come to fruition.

“​​It is important to recognize New York’s rich and diverse culture,” Heastie said in a statement. “Therefore, it is the intention of the Assembly to pass legislation to observe Lunar New Year and Diwali as holidays in New York State before the close of our legislative session.”

“We will continue discussions with stakeholders as to how this affects the school year calendar,” he added.

The statement, which was issued without much public prompting this week, comes after a number of advocates placed numerous calls and requests about the bill with lawmakers, sources told the Eagle.

Diwali, a 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 fight to establish the festival of lights as a New York City public school holiday is decades old, and more intense organizing around the issue has been underway for at least the past eight years. A bulk of the advocacy work has been in Queens, which is home to the largest South Asian community in the state. There are approximately 200,000 school-aged children whose families celebrate the holiday in New York City, many of whom are forced each year to choose between their education and their faith.

After the Wednesday statement from Heastie, advocates say their hope that the holiday will be written into the state’s books is beginning to light up again.

“I think this is a promising statement from the speaker,” said district leader Richard David. “I think that New Yorkers, especially Diwali-observing New Yorkers, are waiting for this moment where it will pass, and seven days means that there’s still a ray of hope.”

However, after a number of broken promises and failed bills to create the school holiday in Albany, others remain wary.

“I'm always cautious here because of how many promises we've made as a community,” said Aminta Kilawan-Narine, the co-founder of Sadhana Coalition of Progressive Hindus. “But I also remain positively optimistic.”

The fight for the holiday has been a tenuous one, going back to at least 2015.

“There have been many, many calls for the Diwali holiday,” said Kilawan-Narine. “We've held rallies and press conferences in the neighborhoods that are impacted, such as Richmond Hill, but also on the steps of City Hall.”

The effort took on new life in the last few years, with a campaign statement from then-candidate Eric Adams promising to make Diwali a school holiday in the five boroughs on his first day in office.

However, after being elected, Adams said that the process had proven to be more difficult than expected. In the fall of last year, he said that in order to make Diwali a school holiday, Albany would have to get involved – that claim has been disputed by several lawmakers and advocates.

Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, Schools Commissioner David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams announced a bill to create a Diwali school holiday in October. File photo via the City of New York/Twitter

New York State law requires that students get a full 180 days of instruction, and the state had already reached its holiday limit to stay within that guideline, Adams said. Rajkumar’s legislation eliminates one day off from the school’s calendar – that day is Brooklyn-Queens Day, otherwise known as Anniversary Day, which is a Protestant holiday that dates back to 1829 and which was established as a school holiday in the 1950s by the state legislature.

Rajkumar, the bill’s main advocare in the state house and first Indian-American woman ever elected to a New York State office, told the Eagle that the passing of the bill before the session is up is a near certainty.

“With Speaker Heastie's historic announcement, the whole state has come together to speak with one voice in support of the Diwali school holiday,” she said in a statement. “I would like to thank Speaker Heastie for his deep commitment to making sure our community is represented. I look forward to making history with Speaker Heastie and passing the Diwali School Holiday bill this legislative session.”

But the process may be complicated by potential amendments being made to the bill during the final days of the legislative session, according to Queens Senator Joseph Addabbo, who sponsors the Senate version of the bill.

“I do understand that the current bill might be amended,” he told the Eagle. “Obviously, time is not a luxury that we have, [with] only seven days left. So, if the Assembly is going to make amendments and pass it, I hope they do it in a timely manner to the Senate.”

“To acknowledge Diwali would be the right thing to do given the diversity certainly of our city,” added Addabbo. “I don't think it's a heavy lift in my opinion.”

In the Senate, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins also seems keen to pass the bill in this session.

“There is definitely an appetite to move a similar bill in the Senate before the end of session,” her spokesperson said in a statement to the Eagle.

Rajkumar told the Eagle that amendments to the bill, if any, are being worked on and would not change the fundamental nature of the bill.

One possible amendment – in its current form, the bill only eliminates Brooklyn-Queens Day, and does not explicitly mention replacing it with a Diwali holiday, an amendment could make the swap more clear. Sources also told the Eagle that officials may be exploring the possibility of expanding the holiday statewide.

Queens Assemblymember David Weprin, who, alongside Rajkumar, represents a large number of Queens’ South Asian population, said that despite the time crunch, he believes “there is a good chance” the bill will pass.

“There's a lot of momentum for it, a lot of support – I strongly support it,” he said.

Though Diwali is replacing a school holiday that few in New York City observed with any seriousness, that is not the case for Diwali.

“I think for far too long, too many children across New York State have had to choose between their faith in their future, or their culture and their classwork,” said Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a co-sponsor of the bill whose mother is Hindu, and who grew up celebrating the holiday.

“If you're telling a child that they need to choose between falling behind in school or falling behind in their faith, you're effectively telling them that in this city that they call home, they cannot be all parts of themselves in one moment, that they must choose,” he added. “These are children who are constantly having their belonging called into question. It is high time that the state formally recognizes that not only do they belong, but that these holidays are worthy of recognition by everyone.”

Mamdani was critical of the mayor for not taking action on the holiday himself, and has been reluctant to celebrate the change until it becomes official.

However, he appeared more optimistic than he has been following Heastie’s statement this week.

“I take the speaker at his word more than I take the mayor at his,” he said. “This is a statement of intention that I believe. It's not a hope, it's not a possibility, but rather I read it as a promise.”

Kilawan-Narine said she’s not as trusting. Heastie’s statement does not make specific reference to Rajkumar’s bill, nor does it mention making the holiday a school holiday specifically.

“I will say that Carl Heastie’s statement is not necessarily the most specific,” she said. “I think it does demonstrate a level of commitment as a leader of the legislature to make it happen, and I think that it's something that we can use to hold elected officials accountable here, many who have told us that they're going to do this and then don't.”

The Eagle reached out to the mayor’s office regarding the bill’s potential passage but did not receive a response before press time.

This year, school holiday or not, celebrations of Diwali will take place on Nov. 12.

Additional reporting by Jacob Kaye.