Festivals of India: State-wise List and Exam Facts

Festivals are the easiest scoring block in the art and culture section, because the question is almost always a pair: a festival on one side and a state, a tribe, a temple or a month on the other. Nothing in the pair changes from year to year, so a student who has revised the pairs once can answer in seconds. This note arranges the festivals the way a paper setter thinks about them, by the reason they are celebrated, and then attaches to each the one detail that a question hangs on.

Harvest festivals and the same day under many names

The most repeated trap in the whole topic is the mid-January harvest festival, which is one astronomical event celebrated under different names. When the Sun enters Capricorn, around 14 January, the day is Makar Sankranti in most of northern India, Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu in Assam, Lohri on the evening before in Punjab and Haryana, and Uttarayan in Gujarat, where the International Kite Festival is held at Ahmedabad. Pongal runs for four days, Bhogi, Thai Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal, and the bull-taming sport Jallikattu belongs to Mattu Pongal.

The other harvest festivals are spread across the year. Baisakhi, on 13 or 14 April, is the Punjab harvest festival and also the day Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib in 1699. Onam is the harvest festival of Kerala, celebrated in the Malayalam month of Chingam, remembering the return of king Mahabali; its main day is Thiruvonam and the snake boat race is Vallamkali. Nuakhai is the harvest festival of western Odisha, Wangala or the Hundred Drums festival belongs to the Garo tribe of Meghalaya, and Sarhul and Karma are the Sal-tree and monsoon festivals of Jharkhand.

New year festivals, state by state

Temple festivals and the great fairs

The Rath Yatra of Puri in Odisha carries Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in three chariots named Nandighosha, Taladhwaja and Darpadalana to the Gundicha temple. Every twelve to nineteen years the wooden images are renewed in the ritual called Nabakalebara. In Kerala the biggest temple festival is Thrissur Pooram, held at the Vadakkunnathan temple in the Malayalam month of Medam, famous for its caparisoned elephants, the panchavadyam percussion and the umbrella exchange called Kudamattam. Bali Yatra at Cuttack on Kartik Purnima recalls Odisha's old sea trade with Bali and Java, and boats of paper and banana bark are floated in memory of it.

Among fairs, the Kumbh Mela rotates between Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik and was inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in 2017. The Pushkar Fair of Rajasthan and the Sonepur Mela of Bihar, held at Harihar Kshetra, are the best known cattle fairs, and the Surajkund International Crafts Mela is held every February in Faridabad, Haryana. The Ambubachi Mela belongs to the Kamakhya temple at Guwahati, and Bastar Dussehra in Chhattisgarh is the longest running Dussehra celebration in the country.

Festivals of the North East and the tribal belt

• Nagaland celebrates the Hornbill Festival at Kisama from 1 to 10 December, called the festival of festivals; Sekrenyi belongs to the Angami and Moatsu to the Ao.
• Mizoram celebrates Chapchar Kut in spring, when the bamboo dance Cheraw is performed.
• Meghalaya has Wangala of the Garo and Ka Pomblang Nongkrem of the Khasi.
• Arunachal Pradesh has Mopin and Solung of the Adi and Galo, Nyokum of the Nyishi, Dree of the Apatani and the Torgya of Tawang monastery.
• Sikkim observes Pang Lhabsol for the guardian deity of Khangchendzonga and Losoong as its harvest new year.
• Manipur has Yaoshang, its spring festival with the Thabal Chongba dance, and Lai Haraoba.

Religious festivals and the months they fall in

Holi falls on the full moon of Phalguna, Buddha Purnima on the full moon of Vaishakha, Guru Nanak Jayanti on Kartik Purnima and Mahavir Jayanti in Chaitra. Ganesh Chaturthi in Bhadrapada became a public festival in Maharashtra after Bal Gangadhar Tilak organised it in 1893. Chhath, the Sun festival of Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh, falls on the sixth day after Diwali. Hemis festival in Ladakh honours Guru Padmasambhava, and Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib follows Holi.