Friendship Day in India

For many Indian people, the first Sunday of August is dedicated to celebrating their best friends.

Is Friendship Day a Public Holiday?

Friendship Day is not a public holiday. It falls on Sunday, August 4, 2024 and most businesses follow regular Sunday opening hours in India.

Bollywood Boom

One of the most important events in popularizing this holiday in India was the 1998 hit movie Kuch Kota Hai, which featured a plotline about Friendship Day. This movie was a huge box office success with younger audiences, and the film’s popularity (along with promotions by greeting card companies) gave a tremendous boost to the holiday nationwide.

Greeting Cards and Idealism

The true origin of a special day of observance devoted to friendship is up for debate.

Some accounts say the notion sprang from a marketing concept. In 1919, Joyce Hall, the founder of the USA-based Hallmark greeting card company, is said to have suggested the creation of Friendship Day as a way to boost sales in August.

Independent of the Hallmark initiative, Friendship Day also seems to have developed roughly simultaneously in India and Paraguay during the 1950s.

In the South American country, the Cruzada Mundial de la Amistad, or World Friendship Crusade Movement, was formed in 1958 and worked to establish a dedicated holiday, which is now celebrated on July 30 in Paraguay.

At roughly the same time in India, the Anuvrat Movement, a group based on Jain spiritual traditions, championed the idea of a day promoting peace, harmony, and friendship.

The United Nations (UN) added further legitimacy to the concept by calling for an International Friendship Day worldwide. In 2011, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution urging all member states to celebrate the holiday.

While we diligently research and update our holiday dates, some of the information in the table above may be preliminary. If you find an error, please let us know.