What if Diwali, Holi, Eid, or Christmas stop being holidays? At first glance, it may seem simple. In reality, it cuts to the heart of how a constitutional democracy recognises identity, belief, and belonging. When the All India Shiromani Singh Sabha versus Union of India located the power to declare holidays in executive discretion, it raised a deeper question: can something so closely tied to equality and religious freedom be left entirely to administrative choice? In this ruling, the Supreme Court emphasised that, apart from the three nationally mandated days — Republic Day, Independence Day, and Gandhi Jayanti — there is no constitutional or statutory obligation to recognise specific religious or cultural festivals. This reasoning has a certain logic. Governments need flexibility to manage calendars across diverse regions and institutions. Yet, the judgment sidesteps the constitutional values that holidays inevitably engage.
In India, the evolution of public holidays reflects layers of history — pre-colonial customs, colonial governance, and post-Independence constitutionalism. National holidays were consciously designed to reinforce shared civic values: Republic Day, for instance, marks the coming into force of the Constitution in 1950, rooted in the earlier Purna Swaraj declaration. Festival holidays, by contrast, evolved through a mix of social practice and State recognition. Colonial administrations began formalising leave for widely observed festivals like Diwali, Eid-ul-Fitr, and Christmas, partly as a response to social realities. After Independence, this practice continued, with Central and state governments maintaining lists that sought to reflect India’s pluralism. Over time, these recognitions came to be seen as a form of symbolic inclusion.
The current legal framework governing holidays appears both fragmented and opaque. Several statutes touch upon the subject, but none provides a coherent or principled basis for recognising festivals. Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 empowers the government to declare “public holidays” on which cheques and promissory notes are not processed. Section 96(2) of the Companies Act, 2013 requires companies to avoid scheduling annual general meetings on national holidays, indirectly reinforcing their mandatory status. The Factories Act, 1948 ensures workers receive regular days off, embedding labour welfare into the calendar. Meanwhile, the Bank Holidays Act, 1871 historically enabled the notification of bank closures.
But public holidays embody constitutional equality, freedom of religion, and secularism. Indian secularism follows the doctrine of principled distance, which envisions equal treatment of all religions, neither promoting nor inhibiting faiths, while safeguarding freedom and dignity. But the present system of holiday notifications echoes majority preferences. The absence of transparent, inclusive criteria allows political expediency and majority opinion to determine recognition of a few days over others. For example, in March 2025, Haryana downgraded Eid-ul-Fitr from a gazetted to a restricted holiday, forcing Muslim employees to use optional leave.
A nuanced approach demands that the exercise of executive power is guided by transparent and inclusive principles. Criteria such as historical significance, demographic representation, and cultural centrality could provide a rational basis for recognition. Publicly available reasons for including or excluding particular festivals would enhance accountability. Periodic reviews could ensure that holiday calendars evolve with changing social realities, while grievance processes would allow communities to seek recognition without resorting to political mobilisation alone.
In a diverse society, recognition is not a trivial matter. When the State marks a day as a holiday, it affirms that the associated history or belief is part of the shared public sphere. When it withholds that recognition, the absence is equally meaningful. The question, thus, is how governments exercise the power to decide public holidays and whether it reflects the constitutional promise of equal respect for all faiths and cultures?
Anchal Bhatheja is a research fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and a disability rights lawyer
