The Indian-American Diwali wishlist

For the Indian-American community Diwali is certainly the biggest festivals of all. It crosses the North-South and the East-West Indian boundaries like no other festival does. The White House celebrated Diwali for the first time in 2003 and subsequently the Congress granted it official status in 2007. Obama became the first president to personally attend Diwali at the White House in 2009. Good. But not enough !

Declaration of Diwali as a National Day of Celebration and a National holiday was a burning issue during the election campaigns. We should not forget this demand just because the elections are over. Although it seems very much within our reach to get official holidays for Diwali in local schools in districts with good concentration of Indian Americans, on a national level with the small percent of population that we have this is certainly not an easy task.

In my opinion, every Indian American should do the following two tasks on the occasion of Diwali:-

1. Reach out to the neighbors - We must involve the local non-Indians in our celebration of Diwali. This will give them a closer understanding of the festival and the message that it sends. They will feel connected to it. We will have a better neighborhood and Diwali will find more patrons. 

2. Keep on repeating the demands - Till the time we get what we want to get we must not give up and we must keep on repeating them on every small or big occasion. Diwali is certainly one such occasion when we should come out with our wish-list, loud and clear. Below are some of them           

- Recognize Diwali as a National Day of Celebrations

- Reduce waiting period for Green Card

- Revise public school curriculum to include Indian Culture

There are also some not-so-important political ones. Like invite NaMo to the US and ban financial aid to Pak. But keeping a focus on these very genuine basic demands will certainly help us see them becoming a reality.

Harsh Vardhan