If we’re banning the painful, overdose-on-sunshine sort of sun burn, I’m all about it too. But in India, the Sunburn in question is in fact the country’s biggest EDM festival, and over the past few weeks, #BanSunburn has been trending in the country in response to several social concerns. Specifically, the community appears to be concerned that music festivals such as Sunburn Festival would corrupt the country’s youth.
One of the first to voice concerns was religious group Sanskriti Raksha Mohim, casting light to potential issues of drug and/or alcohol abuse and sound pollution. This follows the festival’s announced return this year to its home location on Vagator Beach in Goa after the Goan government had loosened its regulations over music festivals. In 2016, the government had previously discussed banning large music festivals completely in Goa.
As with everything in today’s world, there are two sides of the argument. Below are some examples of how either sides have taken to Twitter to express their opinions.
@SunburnFestival ‘BURN’ the idea of #SunburnGoa2019
— Kritika Khatri (@kk_jpr) December 14, 2019
Dear @goacm sir,
To stop drug mafias,
addiction,
vulgarity,
cheapness in goa;
We request ur good self to pls #BanSunburnFestival
N set an example of the most concerned chief minister of #Bharat to make Goa #ParshuramBhoomi pic.twitter.com/471rVVmiP4
#SayNoToSunburn , हर हिंदूकी मांग @sanatansanstha @Ramesh_hjs pic.twitter.com/ZYJg9lWNCX
— Abhijit Deshmukh (@aabhijitd) December 27, 2017
Woke up to see ban sunburn trending today and it’s funny to see that the only people advocating #Bansunburn are non Goans and communal groups leave it upto us guys 👍 we need no dictators.
— Aditya_naik (@aditya_naik) December 14, 2019
This would not be the first time India has seen the #BanSunburn hashtag. Its first use-case came in 2017 after the festival was associated with several drug-abuse cases.
Slated to take place from December 27 to 29, headliners this year include The Chainsmokers, DJ Snake, Flume and Martin Garrix. The rest of the line-up proves to be equally impressive, but at this point, festival organisers have not responded to the #BanSunburn campaign.
