All India Bakchod, otherwise known as AIB, takes on India's rape culture in a parody satirizing the erroneous rationale blaming women in the wake of a sexual assault. The final product is as poignant as one might imagine.
AIB is a comedy collective comprised of Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya. Their weekly sketch show, AIB 365, is described as "edgy" and "politically incorrect." So it makes sense why they would choose to tackle the flagrant fallacies that tend to arise after a sexual assault in the video, "It's Your Fault," starring two Bollywood actresses in increasingly bad states of abuse.
"Ladies, do you think rape is something men do out of a desire for control, empowered by years of patriarchy?" the actress says. "You've clearly been misled by the notion that women are people, too. Because, let's face it, ladies: rape... it's your fault."
Provocative clothing, working too late, Bollywood movies and Chow mein are just some of the ridiculous excuses listed in the three-minute clip about why rape is the woman's fault. At the end of the short, "Stop Blaming The Victim" flashes across the screen.
Al Jazeera's The Stream spoke with Khamba about using comedy to make a statement about India's rape culture.
"The notion behind this video was pretty simple," he said. "We wanted to attack patriarchy as it exists in India and it sort of comes out every time there is a sexual assault case or a rape case. The first thing that happens is, instead of focusing on the crime and looking at the perpetrator... the burden is always put on the woman."
Khamba sought to address questions that women actually face following an attack, like "Did you drink?" and "What were you wearing?"
"Instead of making it preachy, if you do it through satire the idea was to make people a little bit uncomfortable while they were watching the video," he added. "But at the time, [we wanted to] get the message across that we need to move away from blaming the victim."
Rape in India made international headlines last December after the brutal gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi. One of Mumbai's proposed solutions to the matter of sexual violence is banning the display of lingerie in storefronts, according to human trafficking expert Mary David. These displays, according to one government official, "provoke" men to carry out gang rapes.
