Bihar releases 2024 academic calendar, scraps holidays for some Hindu festivals

Patna: A massive controversy erupted in Bihar on Tuesday after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led state government released a new holiday calendar for 2024 that allegedly had the number of holidays reduced for some Hindu festivals.

Releasing the revised holiday calendar for 2024, the Bihar education department said the chart has been created to ensure at least 220 teaching days under the Right to Education.

According to the calendar, there will be no holidays on festivals like Shivratri, Janmashtami, Raksha Bandhan, Teej and Jitiya in 2024. In the meanwhile, a three-day holiday has been given for Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha (Bakrid).

In this year's school calendar, Teej had a two-day holiday, and Jitiya had one day. However, the holidays for these festivals have been removed, sparking a verbal dispute between the Bihar government and the opposition BJP.

'Bihar govt showed an anti-Hindu face'

Reacting to the issue, the Bihar BJP unit called Nitish Kumar for allegedly showing an ‘anti-Hindu’ face for reducing the number of holidays for Hindu festivals. 

Bihar BJP leader Sushil Modi said, “Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government has shown an anti-Hindu face and taken a decision to hurt the sentiments of the Hindus. The holidays for Hindu festivals have been selectively slashed while holidays for Muslim festivals have been increased.”

Meanwhile, BJP MP Vivek Thakur said, "Nobody has any objection if you increase the Eid leaves from 3 to 12 days but don't Hindus have the right to celebrate their religion? You are promoting religious conversion. Either you make it clear that are you a Hindu any longer or changed your religion or this is a decision of "Nitish Khan and Tejashwi Khan"...The Hindu society of Bihar will not accept this."