Igas Bagwal 2026

About Igas Bagwal

Igas Bagwal, also called Budhi Diwali, is the Diwali of the Uttarakhand hills, kept on Kartik Shukla Ekadashi, the eleventh lunar day after Diwali. It is strongest in Garhwal, where villages light lamps, honour their cattle and swing the bhailo, a flaming bundle of pine, after dark. In 2026 it falls on Friday, 20 November 2026.

In Garhwal, Diwali is Bagwal, and the hills keep two of them. The first falls on the new moon with the rest of India. The second, Igas, comes on Ekadashi, the eleventh lunar day of Kartik's bright fortnight, and in many Garhwali villages it is the bigger night. The name says as much: Igas is the hill word for that eleventh day.

Kumaon knows the day mainly as Budhi Diwali, the old or later Diwali. In parts of Tehri it is Bhaila Bagwal, after the fire that defines it, and some Garhwal villages call it Bheem Diwali.

Why is Igas kept eleven days after Diwali?

Families in the hills tell more than one story.

The best known is about news travelling slowly. When Rama came back to Ayodhya, the tradition goes, word took eleven days to reach the high villages, so they lit their lamps on Ekadashi instead. Garhwalis tell it with affection, not as a complaint.

The second story belongs to Garhwal alone. Madho Singh Bhandari of Maletha village, a general under King Mahipat Shah in the seventeenth century, was away fighting in Tibet when Diwali came. Villagers feared he was dead and did not celebrate. He returned victorious eleven days later, and the lamps were lit for him. Bhandari is a historical figure, born around 1585, also remembered for the irrigation channel and rock tunnel he cut to bring water to Maletha. His deeds survive in panwara, the heroic ballads of Garhwal, some of them collected in the 1960s and 70s at the urging of the statehood leader Indramani Badoni.

Around Chamba in Tehri, people tell of a man who went into the forest to gather wood for the bhaila and was not back by Diwali, so his village waited for him. Another links the day to Bhima of the Mahabharata, which is where the name Bheem Diwali comes from.

How the date is set

Igas falls on Kartik Shukla Ekadashi, the same tithi as Dev Uthani Ekadashi, also called Haribodhini or Prabodhini Ekadashi, when Vishnu is said to wake from his four-month sleep. Some households keep the fast alongside the feasting.

"Eleven days after Diwali" counts lunar days, not calendar dates. Because tithis do not line up neatly with sunrises, the gap on the calendar is often twelve days. In 2025 Diwali fell on 20 October and Igas on 1 November.

In some years Drik Panchang lists two possible Ekadashi dates, a Smarta date and a Vaishnava date a day later. Households follow their family priest or local panchang, and the state's holiday notice, when one is issued, names the date offices will observe. Uttarakhand Foundation Day on 9 November usually falls between the two, and state celebrations now run from one to the other.

What happens on Igas

1. Morning
   Sweets and fried food

   Families make swale, puri and pakodi of urad dal, shared with neighbours.

2. During the day
   Cattle are honoured

   Cows and oxen are bathed and given a tilak, then fed pinda, a mash of rice and jhangora millet. In some villages the rakhi a sister tied on Raksha Bandhan is cut from a brother's wrist and tied to a cow's tail.

3. During the day
   New grain and new pots

   Freshly harvested grain goes into the kothar, the wooden grain chest, and herding families set out new vessels for milk and curd.

4. Dusk
   Lamps and local deities

   Lamps are lit and the village deities worshipped, often with jagar songs that call the gods.

5. Night
   Bhailo

   Each bhailo is worshipped and marked with tilak, then lit and swung in circles while the dhol and damau play.

6. Late night
   Dance

   Villagers dance chanchari and jhumelo in a ring around the fire, and mangal songs carry on late.

A bhailo is made by binding dry chir pine with stalks of sesame, bhangjira and hisar, and tying the bundle to a long rope. Once lit, it is swung in wide circles so the flame draws rings in the dark. Some players add stunts and turns. People in Garhwal say Igas without bhailo is incomplete.

From village festival to state holiday

For years Igas faded as families left the hills for jobs in the plains. Its revival is tied to that same migration. From 2018 a campaign led by Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni urged people to celebrate Igas in their home villages, and he goes back to his own, Nakot in Pauri district. His Delhi residence now hosts an Igas puja each year, attended in recent years by the Prime Minister and Union ministers.

The state followed. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced a state holiday for Igas in 2021, and in 2022 a government order closed government and private offices, schools, banks and treasuries on 4 November for the festival. Coverage in 2025 described the Igas holiday as established, but it is still announced by notice each autumn, so check the current year's order. Bhailo is now played at the Chief Minister's camp office in Dehradun and at Uttarakhandi gatherings in Delhi.

What to write

Igas messages work best when they are about the village and the people in it. Many people you might wish will be on a bus to Pauri or Tehri that week, or wishing they were.

Igas

The hill name for Ekadashi, the eleventh lunar day, on which the festival falls

Bagwal

The Garhwali and Kumaoni word for Diwali

Bhailo (bhaila)

A bundle of pine and dry stalks tied to a rope, lit and swung in circles

Pinda

Rice and jhangora cooked together and fed to cattle on Igas

Swale

A fried bread made in hill homes for festivals

Panwara

A Garhwali heroic ballad, such as those about Madho Singh Bhandari

Chanchari, jhumelo

Garhwali ring dances performed on festival nights

How to wish someone on Igas Bagwal

An Igas wish is about home. Many Garhwalis and Kumaonis live in Delhi, Dehradun or abroad, and the festival has become a call to go back to the village, so a line about the gaon, the courtyard, the bhailo or a mother's swale lands better than a generic Diwali line. Use the name the family uses, Igas, Bagwal or Budhi Diwali. Some households also keep the Ekadashi fast, so don't assume everyone is feasting.

Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.

Language tip: English, Garhwali + Kumaoni and Hindi.

When is Igas Bagwal in each year?

Igas Bagwal is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar, so it falls on a different date each year. In 2027 it falls 10 days earlier than in 2026.

Frequently asked questions