Goa’s electronic music party beaches go silent after two men die of a suspected drug overdose

The deaths of two young men in Goa due to a suspected drug overdose over the long Independence Day weekend from August 11-15 has locked down the party zone in North Goa’s Electronic Dance Music epicentre of Anjuna-Vagator. But jazz and rock events were also cancelled over the past week.

At least five EDM festivals and smaller beack shack parties were scheduled in the coastal state starting August 11. According to reports, only three had permits to play music, and that too till 10 pm.

The two young men were at separate parties in the Anjuna-Vagator stretch on Saturday night, when they felt uneasy. They were taken to hospital where they died.

Goa is scheduled for two crucial bye-elections on August 23, including one in state capital Panaji, where Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is a candidate. When news of the deaths emerged, and with the drugs angle getting ample play in the local media, the state administration moved swiftly to limit the damage.

On Sunday, it called all live music venue owners and festival organisers for a meeting and enforced a post-9 pm music shutdown in the Anjuna-Vagator stretch. That evening, the area fell silent, said residents. The shutdown affected ticketed EDM events announced between August 11-15. Some festivals, such as Satellite Beachside, a four-day long dance and electronic music festival, relocated further north to Ashvem.

On Monday, Superintendent of Police, North Goa, Chandan Choudhary told reporters the police would strictly enforce the 10 pm deadline for music in the state. “In the coming days, no party will be allowed in open places after 10 pm,” she said. “Where there is music, there is possibility of drugs and over-consumption of liquor. So we will make sure the time limit is adhered to.”

Choudhary added: “Drugs are freely available to youngsters who come over from Kerala, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Party drugs have been recovered from young tourists who visited the state during long weekends.”

Police crackdown

In the police crackdown that followed the two deaths last weekend, three students of law, engineering and design were allegedly picked up on August 14 from the parking lot of Curlies, a popular beach shack in South Anjuna, and booked allegedly for possessing small amounts of charas, a form of cannabis. Police also arrested a waiter at the shack for alleged possession of 7.3 grams of charas. Curlies owner, Edwin Nunes, was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act the following day. Rohan Shetty, the operator of Club Nyex in Anjuna, was also arrested under the Act the same day. Two other students, including one from Kerala, were booked for alleged possession of narcotics at another nightclub.

“Under Section 25 of the NDPS [Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances] Act, the owner of the premises, where any such drug-related activity has taken place – either consumption or sale of drugs – is equally responsible for the same offence,” said Choudhary. “So on those grounds, we have arrested the owner of Curlies and the operator of Nyex.”

On August 17, the state Food and Drug Administration shut down Curlies restaurant for not following hygiene conditions.

‘Nothing changes on the ground’

Away from the media glare, the footwork around the crackdown on party venues and clubs resembles the usual response that the administration usually resorts to when a controversy of this nature erupts.

On the ground nothing changes said Bhalbim Malvankar, a resident of Chapora village, near Anjuna and Vagator. “One can see that only the smaller guys are getting picked up,” he said. “The real people don’t seem to be getting caught.”

Facing flak from the Opposition, the BJP-led government has been talking tough. “Late night rave parties are illegal and it is where drugs are consumed and distributed,” said Parrikar on the sidelines of the official Independence Day function in Panaji. “Rave parties on beaches or remote areas should be totally stopped.”

But people following the music scene in Goa say state authorities are playing around with terminology (for instance, the focus on the all-night rave parties). Somehow crackdowns are not even handed. Clubs with the right political connections remain unaffected while businesses of supporters of their political rivals are treated harshly.

“Even now events are going on indoors in some clubs in Anjuna,” Malvankar said.

Hippie scene

The seaside villages of Anjuna, Vagator and Chapora were the epicentre of the 1960s hippie scene. They became the hub for techno music and it was here where the style of electronic music known as Goa Trance – whose creator Goa Gill lived in the Anjuna area – was spawned in the 1980s and 1990s.

Goa Trance underground music (mixed by DJs, eschewing record label backing) and underground pop-up rave parties, advertised by word of mouth, were the rage among the backpacking European crowd that thronged Goa and the Anjuna area through the 1990s and early 2000s. The scene was stamped out completely from 2003 once it came under the radar of the mainstream media.

By then, the Goa government decided that the drugs scene, the long-staying low budget backpacker segment from abroad, and crime like the Scarlett Keeling case of 2008 were not good for the growth of upmarket tourism in the state.

Subsequently, the police began cracking down on rave parties where earlier they had looked the other way. This, and increasing commercialisation of these once underground parties, ultimately drove the rave scene and western backpacker segment out of Anjuna, out of Goa, and to places like Bali in Indonesia.

What remains are a couple of smaller open air venues that organise commercially ticketed psytrance festivals for fans of this music genre where international and Indian DJs perform. A few beach shacks associated with the genre also hold psy trance parties with recorded music or local DJs for restaurant patrons.

Big-ticket festivals

The exit of western backpackers hit hard the family business networks of chai shops, bars, small guesthouses and rent-a-bike operators that thrived on that segment. Investors from out of Goa have now moved in, rapidly commercialising this former backpacker mecca with sprawling hotels, swish lounge bars and upscale EDM venues. Clubs in the major North Goa tourist hubs of Candolim and Calangute, as well as Anjuna and Morjim-Ashvem further north have incorporated EDM as one of their genres on offer. They seemingly have no problem with permissions from the local administration.

With trance music gaining mainstream fans among Indian teens and the party set from big and small town India, mega commercial EDM festivals like Sunburn and VH1’s Supersonic moved into Goa, often clashing with each other – vying for state government permissions, beach side venues, festival dates and footfalls – taking their rivalries in Goa to absurd levels over the growing economic stakes.

These festivals brought a line-up of world-class international DJs, attracting the upper middle class under-30 demographic in India who could afford their expensive tickets. Local hoteliers benefited from the business they brought.

Drug-related deaths plagued both these festivals as well, but in 2015, Goa’s tourism corporation under a BJP government partnered with Sunburn, the largest EDM festival in the state.

In 2016, however, both the two festivals announced that they were moving out of Goa, to Pune. There are already plans to grant permissions for more EDM festivals with a Gujarat-based entertainment company submitting a proposal for an event at Vagator in December, which officials told the Times of India, had received “in-principle permission”.

Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar, meanwhile, has made it clear he favoured the return of the mega EDM festivals to Goa.

In comparison, the resurgence of Anjuna’s smaller scale EDM parties that drew students and youth from smaller South Indian towns this Independence Day weekend has met with a police crackdown after the two deaths.

Concern over drugs

“The locals are split,” a villager told Scroll.in. “The 50% who earn incomes from tourism are willing to put up with the crowds and noise levels, while those who are not earning from tourism complain about the night parties and sound levels either to the authorities or at the gram sabhas.”

The villager added: “On drugs though everyone agrees that this should be tackled, but catching addicts with small amounts for consumption makes little sense. Are the main dealers getting caught?”

One newspaper recently highlighted that an informant for the Goa police was picked up by the Kerala police in May for supplying drugs to that state. On August 14, the Hyderabad police also made drug-related arrests that had connections with Goa.

Event organisers agree that some people tend to take mood enhancers, including dangerous chemical party drugs like MDMA or Molly, while listening to trance music but said it was wrong to equate certain genres of music with drugs.

“Equating all music or particular kinds of music with drugs is nonsensical to me,” said Public Relations professional Sapna Sahani. “Perhaps there should be an understanding of the social reality – that youngsters think party drugs are seen as cool to indulge in.”

Sahani said that abroad there are organisations like Dance Safe that have harm reduction protocols and educative pamphlets for teens who throng EDM festivals. “Many die from either taking adulterated substances, or because they are not careful about things like staying hydrated,” she said.

Party drugs like MDMA is a known killer internationally on the EDM scene. If users do not hydrate, blood pressure and body temperature can rise to fatal levels, leading to users dying of heat stroke symptoms.

Sahani added: “Let us recognise it is a social problem and have mechanisms to educate them about the specifics of the potential dangers.”