All India Bakchod (AIB) has issued a fresh update on their financial condition and chances of the channel's return. The comedy group has been facing severe financial crisis and in the wake of the same, the AIB YouTube channel is "dead for the foreseeable future".
In a long Instagram post, AIB stated that the company has been facing severe monetary hardships, following its members being accused of sexual harassment. In the fresh update, it has been said that accused Tanmay Bhat's suspension has been lifted, but he will no longer be holding the position of CEO.
Another member of the group, Gursimran Khamba has also been removed from the operations of AIB.
Other two key members of the team, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya will continue to run the company but are also entitled to carry on their solo projects. Demand to boycott AIB had begun when Tanmay was found to have not taken the desired action against fellow comedian Utsav Chakraborty for sexually harassing a girl. Khamba was also accused of sexually and emotionally harassing a girl.
Read the complete statement below:
It's been a long several months for us at AIB. But before we get to the updates, we'd just like to say thank you to everyone who reached out to us. While we may have not been able to reply to everyone, please know that we are immensely grateful.
After the events of early October, things moved fast. Almost all of our partners hit freeze on future associations, while others pulled out of active projects effective immediately. All of this hit revenue hard.We've always prided ourselves on being a hundred percent independent, cre-ator-owned company. We've been free to choose our own destiny and set our own content standards as a result of this independence. However, the flip-side to this is that with business going to zero, the lack of revenue inflow made it impossible for us, as owners, to sustain outgoing costs.
To be clear, we weren't randomly reckless or fast and loose with our money. We hae invested a lot of our profits over the last few years - including those from our per-sonal individual projects - into building the content house of our dreams. But with no incoming revenue and operational costs piling up, we had to make some hard, and unfortunately permanent, decisions.
We had to let our office space and entire team go overnight. Production, creative, admin, all of it. This was particularly hard not just because making people laugh with us is a ton of fun, but because we had to say goodbye to some of the finest minds in the field, people we'd built dreams with for many years. One small point of pride in all this for us is that with the work they'd done at AIB. not one of them struggled to find another job. However, to that end, the - there will be no new sketches anytime soon. It sucks, but it is what it is. If and when we decide to release other content on the channel (for e.g. stand-up clips), you will be the first to know.
We'd also like to state that we at AIB have had an IC and anti-harassment system in place from the start. However, we recognise that the culture at work may not have been perfect and simply put, we need to be better. To that end, we maintain that Tanmay Bhat's lapse of judgement regarding Utsav Chakraborty was egregious. As a result, even though Tanmay Bhat's suspension has been lifted, he will no longer hold the position of CEO.
With regards to Gursimran Khamba, an External Committee (EC) was appointed to look into the allegations made against him in October. The EC comprised of two ex-perienced senior members - a senior partner at a law firm and a diversity consultant - and its mandate was to conduct a fair investigation into the matter. As required in such cases, the proceedings remain confidential.
However, during the course of the investigation, we were informed that Gursimran Khamba had stepped away from the process, citing issues with procedure. The EC /vas unable to conclude the investigation on account of his withdrawal. Given these circumstances, Gursimran Khamba will no longer be involved in operations at AIB, and will be working independent of us.
Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya will continue to manage the remaining affairs at AIB, but will also be pursuing solo interests in the coming future.
While we may not have a complete roadmap yet, we are sure of one thing going forward - we never want to stop entertaining. Making people laugh has been the great privilege of our lives and we hope to be able to keep doing that, in whatever new form the future holds for us. So once again, thank you for letting us into your world. It has been an honour.
