India’s great festivals follow the moon. Holi colours the end of winter, Durga Puja turns Kolkata into a city of art, and Diwali lights the darkest night of autumn — while in the northeast, the Naga peoples gather every December at Kisama.
Photo: siddarth varanasi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Most Hindu festivals follow a lunisolar calendar, so their dates move against the Gregorian year from one year to the next. The Government of India publishes the official dates of the main holidays each year, and the dates on these pages come from those lists.
India is also the country of the entries here where local practice varies most: the same festival can be celebrated in very different ways in Kolkata, Mathura or Tamil Nadu. The pages say where a custom belongs to a particular region.
দুর্গাপূজা
For ten days each autumn Kolkata worships the goddess Durga — and turns into an open-air gallery. Clay images made from the mud of the Ganga fill thousands of pandals, drummers play, and crowds walk the city day and night until the images return to the river.
October 20, 2026Officially announced
दीपावली
The festival of lights. Over five days around the new moon of autumn, homes, temples and streets glow with oil lamps and lanterns, doorsteps bloom with rangoli, families share sweets and gifts, and the darkest night of the month becomes the brightest of the year.
November 8, 2026Officially announced
For the first ten days of December, the tribes of Nagaland gather at a heritage village in the hills near Kohima to share their songs, dances, crafts, games and food — the “Festival of Festivals”, named after the forest bird of Naga folklore.
December 1 – 10, 2026Calculated
होली
The festival of colours, love and spring. On the night of the full moon bonfires burn for Holika; the next day friends and strangers throw coloured powder and water at each other, sing, dance and share sweets — nowhere more exuberantly than in the towns of Krishna’s Braj.
March 23, 2027Officially announced