Diya In The Oval Office: Diwali’s journey Through The White House

US President Donald Trump marked Diwali in the Oval Office on Friday, two days before the festival. India’s ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, joined Indian-American officials, entrepreneurs and business leaders at the ceremony, PTI reported.

Trump lit a diya at the gathering, continuing an observance that began at the White House complex in 2003. Over the years, the ceremony has moved from a room in an adjacent office building to the Oval Office and grown from a community event into a presidential reception.

Bush Years: Diwali Comes To The White House Complex

The first Diwali celebration at the White House complex was held in 2003, during George W. Bush’s presidency. Bush was away, so senior adviser Karl Rove led the ceremony in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, beside the White House.

Rove lit a brass lamp and conveyed Bush’s greetings to the Indian-American community. The event included prayers, music and Indian food, according to contemporary reports. Bush did not attend Diwali celebrations in person during his presidency.

The ceremony followed requests from Indian-American community members for Diwali to be recognised at the White House. At the time, the event established a place for the festival in the complex’s calendar, though it was not yet a presidential observance.

Obama Makes It A Presidential Observance

Barack Obama became the first US president to take part personally. On October 14, 2009, he marked Diwali in the White House’s East Room and lit a diya.

In a 2011 statement, Obama said he was “the first President to mark Diwali and light the diya at the White House”. He also recalled celebrating the festival with schoolchildren in Mumbai during his 2010 visit to India with first lady Michelle Obama.

In 2016, Obama lit a diya in the Oval Office for the first time. He said he hoped the practice would continue, describing the lamp as a symbol of light overcoming darkness.

Trump And Biden Expand The Celebrations

Trump continued the Oval Office ceremony in 2017, lighting a diya alongside Indian-American officials and community leaders. The following year, he hosted the event in the Roosevelt Room.

At the 2018 ceremony, Trump praised Indian and Southeast Asian Americans serving in government. “Our nation is blessed to be home to millions of hardworking citizens of Indian and Southeast Asian heritage,” he said, adding: “Together, we are one proud American family.”

In 2021, Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden lit a diya together at the White House. They said they were the first president and first lady to do so as a couple.

The Bidens expanded the gathering the next year, hosting an official Diwali reception in the East Room. More than 200 Indian-American guests attended, along with Vice-President Kamala Harris. Biden called it “the first Diwali reception of this scale, in this house, ever to be held”.

Harris, whose mother moved from India to the US to study, spoke about celebrating Diwali as a child. At his final Diwali event as president in 2024, Biden said he had been “honored to host the biggest Diwali receptions ever at the White House”.

Trump marked Diwali at the Oval Office again in October 2025, according to a White House photo gallery. This year’s gathering included Kwatra, FBI Director Kash Patel, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, IBM chief Arvind Krishna, chef Vikas Khanna and entrepreneur Vishal Gondal, PTI reported.

Gondal described the occasion in a post on X as “a moment of shared light in the Oval Office”. He also said he gifted Trump a copy of the Hanuman Chalisa.

Diwali’s Growing Place In US Public Life

The White House observance has continued as the Indian-American community has grown in size and visibility. A 2024 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace study estimated that about 5.2 million people of Indian origin live in the US. It found the community grew by 50% between 2010 and 2020, becoming the country’s second-largest immigrant community by country of origin, after Mexican Americans.

Political participation has also increased. A study by researchers from the University of Michigan and Ashoka University estimated that the number of Indian-American campaign contributors rose from about 6,700 in the 2000 election cycle to more than 43,000 in 2020. The researchers used name-based methods to identify donors and noted limitations in that approach.

In the 2026 midterms, four Indian-American lawmakers won re-election to the House, while Pia Dandiya and Amish Shah won their first congressional races, according to Indian American Impact. The group said Shah would be the first Indian American to represent Arizona in Congress and Dandiya the first to represent Florida.

Recognition has extended beyond Washington. New York City made Diwali a public-school holiday in 2023. Pennsylvania designated Diwali Day in state law in 2024, and Connecticut added an annual Diwali observance to its statutes in 2025.

California’s law recognising Diwali as a state holiday faced a legal challenge. In July 2026, a judge ruled that the measure gave the festival special treatment based on its religious importance; its implementation remained contested.

Religious-studies scholar Amanda Lucia wrote in a 2017 essay for the Oxford University Press blog that Obama’s 2009 participation “sent a message to South Asian Americans that they are a part of the American national narrative”. Since then, presidents from both parties have continued the White House observance, with diya lighting at its centre.