All India Bakchod
Indian creative agency
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Through Sketch comedy and Delhi
In October 2018, the company halted operation and fired its entire staff, after Bhat and Khamba were implicated in two separate sexual harassment allegations. No formal charges were made but the company dissolved in May 2019. Khamba was dissatisfied with the independent investigation into the allegation against him and has since disassociated himself from the company and brand. The company's four founders continue to work in the comedy circuit. Bhat, Joshi and Shakya continue to collaborate independently. The company's social media accounts and YouTube channel are dormant.
History
Background
Tanmay Bhat, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya entered the Mumbai stand-up comedy circuit around 2008. The three frequently performed at an influential open mic show called Weirdass Ham-ateur Night while Joshi and Bhat also worked with Vir Das's Weirdass Comedy company on award show (Filmfare, MTV and Channel V) scripts. Joshi and Bhat performed improv with Das, Kavi Shastri, Ashwin Mushran and Anu Menon as The Cardinal Bengans. Bhat also wrote for Hindi TV and alongside Joshi contributed to JLT (a.k.a. Just Like That), a weekly youth-focused magazine published by The Times of India. Joshi briefly worked for CNBC and wrote a humour column for Mid-Day. Besides stand-up Shakya wrote a humour column for Hindustan Times and wrote for satirical show called The Week That Wasn't and MTV India's Wassup: The Voice of Youngistaan.
Gursimran Khamba is a Delhi-based humour blogger who had gained popularity with political commentary, satirical essays and film reviews. He had also contributed to satirical newsmagazine Faking News. In 2011, he moved to Mumbai to attend graduate school at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and soon transitioned to stand-up and podcasting. Bhat approached Khamba after seeing him perform stand-up, and in 2012, they began the humour and pop-culture SoundCloud podcast All India Bakchod. Initial podcast topics included discussions on pop-culture, parody songs and interviews with contemporary comedians. Joshi and Shakya were frequent guests, first appearing in the third episode.
Formation
When performing or working as a quartet, the four comedians were commonly referred to as AIB. They co-founded the YouTube channel for All India Bakchod in 2013 and began writing sketches. They subsequently formed AIB as a comedy company which filmed videos, performed stand-up comedy and co-wrote shows. By early 2015, the comedy group became a creative agency, making branded content for corporate clients.
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Criticism
AIB's progressive outlook was appreciated as well as criticized for reproducing "the very models of patriarchy it seeks out to address". In February 2017, within a week of being hired as a social-media writer, 22-year-old Krupa Gohil felt, "the company in general and the four founders in particular, saw the internet's emerging conversation about feminism as just another meme-worthy narrative to tap into." Gohil said: "[an employee] made a meme about smashing patriarchy but he didn't even know what patriarchy meant. It was just made and shared on social media to score woke points. These were empty, token actions." Another writer, Nisha Kalra, however, felt supported and looked out for by the team, when a similar incident happened with her. She said that in July 2017, when she was working with AIB as a writer on a contract, a male employee dropped his trousers and underpants and exposed his penis. This incident was repeated by the man, for three days and when he exposed his penis in her presence, thrice in a single day, Kalra decided to confront the person, who said his "pants were loose". After she filed a formal complaint, the man was fired after an inquiry and overall she was very grateful for how the situation was handled.
In early 2018, contemporary comics called out the group on their unidimensional portrayal of female characters who had no agency in their work. Characters in their sketches, podcast guests and their collaborators skewed towards being almost entirely male. The group addressed the issue and said they'd "work harder to create content that's inclusive." Since 2017, they have deleted material that has drawn criticism, including videos that Utsav Chakraborty had worked on.
Allegations of sexual misconduct
Against Utsav Chakraborty
On 4 October 2018, comedian and actor Utsav Chakraborty, a former editor at Huffington Post India, former AIB employee and frequent collaborator, was accused of impropriety. The allegations against Chakraborty garnered attention when poet Mahima Kukreja accused him of sending her an unsolicited explicit image. Before publicly denouncing Chakraborty on Twitter, Kukreja had previously told Bhat about Chakraborty's behaviour. Bhat confronted Chakraborty, took no action and continued a professional working relationship between Chakraborty and AIB. This incident was the genesis of the MeToo movement in India in 2018.
One year later, Chakraborty made public statements alleging that Bhat did not act as he said previously and that Chakraborty was "thrown under the bus" in an attempt to save the company and called the allegations "fabricated".
In a series of Instagram videos, Bhat issued an update on his professional and personal life. He said he was diagnosed with clinical depression at the end of 2018, while the company was being shut down. He said he felt "mentally checked out" and "paralyzed and unable to participate socially, online or even offline". His statement drew both support and criticism from former colleagues and contemporaries.
Against Gursimran Khamba
On 8 October 2018, Khamba was accused of violating consent and emotional abuse by an unknown woman. She said they had "hooked up two-three times" and continued being friends. She added that Khamba drunk called her and threatened to ruin their friendship and emotionally blackmailed her for five months. Khamba acknowledged to a certain degree of misbehaviour but has rejected the suggestion that he violated her consent.
Regarding the statement, Khamba said the allegation was made by a person who shared a "deep personal relationship" with him. He said that an independent committee looked into the allegation for four months and was "replete with procedural lapses and did not follow principals of natural justice". He withdrew from the committee because of this. He founded a new digital content company called Light@27.
Effects
As a result of these allegations, Bhat was asked to step away from the company and Khamba was put on indefinite leave. Both were fired from their roles as judges on the talent show Comicstaan and other Amazon projects. Khamba was fired from his position as showrunner on Gormint. The company's web television show On Air With AIB was canceled. Chintu Ka Birthday, an AIB produced film, was dropped from the 2018 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and its Netflix release was cancelled.
Dissolution
On 8 October 2018, Khamba and Bhat were asked to leave AIB due to their involvement and complicit behaviour in separate sexual harassment allegations. Subsequently, Bhat was asked to step away from the company and Khamba was put on indefinite leave. The two were also fired from various roles they individually held on other shows. The company's web television show was cancelled entirely by its network, Disney+ Hotstar, mid-season. In October 2018, the company was temporarily shut down and was steering towards permanent closure. In May 2019, they issued a statement that confirmed that their entire staff was let go, that Bhat's suspension was lifted (but he would not be allowed to return as CEO) and that Khamba had cut all ties with the company. Bhat, Joshi and Shakya have since re-entered the comedy circuit and continue to be associated with the company's name. Khamba, dissatisfied with an independent inquiry into the allegation against him, decided to leave the company and start another comedic venture.
At the time of dissolution, Bhat, Joshi, Shakya and Khamba each owned 25 per cent of the company. As of March 2018, the company collectively owed the founders just over $51,000 from loans. In May 2019, AIB announced that their YouTube channel was dead for the foreseeable future. On 26 and 27 May 2020, they broke their silence on Instagram and Twitter respectively to announce the world satellite premiere of Chintu Ka Birthday. The trailer of the film was uploaded to AIB's YouTube channel on 29 May 2020.