‘Cringe behaviour’: Indian tourists slammed for forcing Garba on Austrian street artistes

A video of tourists playing Garba in the streets of Austria’s old town of Innsbruck is going viral for all the wrong reasons.

In the video, a group of 43 Gujarati and Marwadi tourists came across two local artistes performing on the street. The group approaches the artistes and requests permission to play some songs on their speaker. The artistes decline politely, explaining they could get into trouble with the police. However, the Indian tourists keep insisting, to a point the artistes give in. For the next five minutes, the tourists play their music and the entire group breaks into a garba on the streets.

The video was shared on Instagram by @ipearlshah with the caption, “Have you ever thought of playing Garba in Europe? Well, I had and now I can tick it off the bucket list.”

The video quickly went viral and has garnered over 123K views on the platform.

Netizens, however, were not pleased with the whole thing. Many criticised the group for making the artistes uncomfortable and disregarding their initial refusal. One user commented, “I am a Gujju and love Garba, but I just don’t understand the obsession with doing it on foreign streets and being proud of it. We don’t even do that in India on a random day and random street!” Another wrote, “This is just embarrassing and precisely why Indian tourists are getting a bad name. Forcing this abroad is ridiculous—no one does this randomly even in India. Please think about how your actions affect other Indian travellers.”

A third user wrote, “Is this really something to be proud of? They were clearly uncomfortable, and you still pushed them into it? No wonder Indians aren’t respected abroad!”

A fourth user commented, “Really cringe behaviour. This felt more like pestering than requesting. And the audacity—to be proud of it! You need to step out of your bubble. This is exactly why Indian tourists face prejudice. Others will suffer because of your irresponsible and tone-deaf actions.”