Australia’s Indian community calls for new national day off for Diwali

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.”

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 British, 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.

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 Australia’s population practices Hinduism.

Christianity decreased by one million people between 2016 and 2021 but was still the most common faith, 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.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• Diwali: the most important and biggest festival in India, this joyous Hindu Festival of Lights is celebrated globally as the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil
• Hindu: someone who practices Hinduism, which is the dominant religion of India, an ancient system of beliefs between 3000-5000 years old that includes the worship of many gods
• Lunar New Year: Chinese New Year is the most important holiday in China and Chinese communities around the world and celebrates the arrival of spring
• Eid: two Muslim holidays, the most important being Eid ul-Fitr, celebrated to mark the end of Ramadan
• multicultural: consisting of or relating to people of many different nationalities and cultures
• diaspora: people with the same cultural and geographic origin but who live elsewhere
• Census: Australia’s comprehensive snapshot of the economic, social and cultural make-up of the country, it is a survey of everybody in the population
• think tank: group of experts in a research facility that develop ideas on a particular subject and make suggestions for action
• illiberalism: political ideology of limiting individual freedom of expression, thought and behaviour
• intolerance: unwillingness to let other people act in a different way or hold different opinions
• Western liberal democracy: form of democracy limiting the power of government, and protecting the freedom and rights of individuals
• pluralism: having different types of people, who hold different beliefs and opinions, within the same society

EXTRA READING

Diwali sets Guinness World Record

Rock Star welcome for Indian PM

Census reveals changing shape of Australia

QUICK QUIZ

1. According to the 2021 Census, what proportion of Australia practices Hinduism?
2. What proportion of Australians in the 2021 Census indicated they had no religion?
3. What fraction of Australians attend church once a year according to the Lowy Institute?
4. As of July 2022, what number of Indian-born people were living in Australia?
5. What is the largest migrant community in Australia?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What is Diwali?
The news story tells us about calls to make Diwali a public holiday and why this would be beneficial, but it doesn’t give us a lot of information about what Diwali actually is and what happens. Research to find out more and answer these questions:

Where is the word “Diwali” derived from?

What does Diwali celebrate?

What are some of the main activities that occur over each of the five days of the Diwali festival?

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Intercultural Understanding

2. Extension
Choose one of the following to complete:

• Draw a picture of a rangoli design
• Create a graph showing Australia’s major religions using data from the article

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts or Mathematics

VCOP ACTIVITY
Exercise the body and the mind
Exercise is not only important for the body, but it’s a lot of fun as well. Let’s bring more exercise into classroom learning by creating a VCOP PE game.

You can add a VCOP challenge to pretty much any game, and it’s a great way to encourage the teacher to let the class play more games.

Here is an example to get you started, then you create one of your own.

VCOP dodgeball
The normal rules of dodgeball apply. Two teams throw soft balls at each other and if you get hit, you have to sit out. The team who knocks out all the players on the other team, wins.

VCOP challenge: when you get eliminated, collect a mini-whiteboard and a basic clause from the sidelines. Up-level the sentence (make it better) by adding VCOP. When you show the teacher your completed sentence, you can return to the game.

Play for a set amount of time and the team with the most players left on the court wins.

Support: use the “Up-Level It” card set – players have to complete one card from the set instead of completing all VCOP challenges.

What can you come up with?