Nepal has too many festival holidays. This is reflected well in the country’s calendar which shows that there are a total of 52 public holidays including festival holidays, besides as many weekly holidays on Saturdays. Too many holidays have cost the national productivity dearly as almost all government and private offices are closed on these days. In the current Nepali month of Paush (mid-December to mid-January) alone, for example, there are three days off because festivals of different communities have fallen on those days.   

 

After the success of the 2006 April Movement, known as Jana Aandolan II, many of the birthday-cum-holidays of the monarchs of old were scrapped only to be replaced with the likes of Lokatantra Diwas and Ganatantra Diwas. In addition, the newly declared secular state was under immense pressure from various religious and ethnic groups to declare their festivals as public holidays. So, the state declared those days as public holidays as demanded to, perhaps, prove its multicultural and multi-ethnic credentials.

 

But that has not satisfied everyone, though Nepal celebrates an average of one public holiday a week. There are still several ethnic minorities who are demanding that the government declare their festivals, too, as national holidays. Imagine all the days that could now be declared holidays if the country was to acknowledge the myriad minorities that are today asserting their rights and identities, on and off the official calendar. 

 

If festivals of all communities are declared as public holidays, most public as well as private offices would be closed for almost the entire year! We certainly don’t want such a situation to emerge. In fact, the Administration Restructuring Commission (ARC) formed in 2009 has already advised the government to reduce the number of public holidays drastically. Established by then Maoist-led government under the chairmanship of the Minister for General Administration, the ARC claimed that the civil service would become more effective if its recommendation was implemented.

 

Presently, Hindus get more festival holidays than other religious groups who don’t mind it because they too get holidays on such days. A non-Hindu would perhaps like to work on the public holidays meant for the Hindus. Similarly, a Hindu would like to work on the festival holidays meant for other religious groups. The government should allow them to do so. For example, if a Buddhist or a Christian or a Muslim wants to work on Shivaratri or Janai Purnima and take a day off on some other important festivals of theirs, they should be allowed to do so. This would be judicious, too.

 

Therefore, the government will do well to fix the number of festival holidays for the entire year and leave it to the employees to decide when they want to take their festival holidays according to their needs, interest and culture. This way, every employee will not want to take a day off on all festivals and offices will be open every day except the weekly day off on Saturday and the national holidays. The number of national holidays, too, should be as minimum as possible.

 

In India, there are only three national holidays. Other holidays are decided by the state governments. Similarly, there are only 11 festival holidays in China. Nepal should learn from such examples in its immediate neighbourhood. Therefore, long festival holidays of Dashain and Tihar should be cut down. Similarly, it’s not appropriate to declare public holidays for all on festivals like Shivaratri, Janaipurnima, Eid, birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, Ubhauli, Udhauli, Gaura Parba, Lhoshar, Maghi etc. Once the number of festival holidays is fixed for the entire year, the government employees and industry workers can take their festival holidays according to their choice.