India's Festivals, Season by Season

• Makar Sankranti — a harvest and kite festival, 14 January (fixed date).
• Republic Day — 26 January (fixed date).
• Pongal — Tamil Nadu's harvest festival, mid-January.
• Maha Shivratri — a major festival honouring Shiva (date varies, usually February or March).
• Holi — the festival of colour, India's best-known spring festival (date varies, usually March).

• Baisakhi — Punjab's spring harvest festival, 13 April (fixed date).
• Ram Navami — marking the birth of Lord Rama (date varies).
• Buddha Purnima — marking the birth of the Buddha, significant in Ladakh and other Buddhist regions (date varies).

• Rath Yatra — Puri's chariot festival (date varies, usually June or July).
• Independence Day — 15 August (fixed date).
• Raksha Bandhan — a festival celebrating siblings (date varies).
• Janmashtami — marking the birth of Lord Krishna, especially significant in Mathura and Vrindavan (date varies).
• Onam — Kerala's major harvest festival (date varies, usually August or September).
• Ganesh Chaturthi — widely celebrated, especially in Maharashtra (date varies).

• Gandhi Jayanti — 2 October (fixed date).
• Navratri and Dussehra — major festivals across much of the country (dates vary, usually October).
• Durga Puja — especially significant in Kolkata and West Bengal (date varies).
• Diwali — the festival of lights, India's biggest travel period (date varies, usually late October or November).
• Pushkar Camel Fair — a major livestock fair and festival in Rajasthan (date varies, usually November).
• Guru Nanak's birthday — significant for the Sikh community (date varies).
• Christmas — 25 December (fixed date).
• New Year's Eve and Day — 31 December to 1 January (fixed dates), marked with major celebrations in Goa and other tourist hubs.

A festival can be a highlight worth timing your trip around, or a reason to book well ahead of everyone else who had the same idea — hotels, trains and flights get tight around Diwali, Holi and the October-to-November festival stretch especially. Check the current year's dates before you commit, since most of these move each year with the lunar calendar.