Mumbai: The controversy over the comedy show – AIB Roast – just refuses to die down. The internet went into a frenzy after YouTube sensation AIB posted their much awaited ‘AIB Knockout: The Roast of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh’. For the first time in the history of Indian entertainment, we saw the loudest, offensive yet entertaining jokes from our very own stars. But things went haywire when an suit was filed against them for "filthy language". The BJP recently asked the BMC to cancel the lease deed of the National Sports Club of India (NSCI), where the event was staged at Worli.
Read: AIB breaks silence on 'filthy' roast with an open letter
AIB offered an unconditional apology to the archdiocese and the Christian community for any offence caused to religious sentiments as a result of our jokes. They took to their Facebook handle to clear the allegations.
Amidst the din over the AIB Knockout, we’ve had the opportunity to reach out to some groups who have had questions about the jokes and the taste they were made in. Our conversations with members of the government (and other political parties) have been civil and frank. Authorities at multiple levels have heard us out patiently and open-mindedly, and we thank them for that. In places where we expected hostility, we have found instead a heartening willingness to engage.
The same holds true for religious communities that the AIB Knockout may have offended. For example we’ve had extensive discussions with members of the Christian community. We also met with members of the Archdiocese of Mumbai. We explained that we didn’t set out to hurt or persecute the Christian community (or indeed any community) when we wrote and performed those jokes. We explained that while writing jokes, no matter the subject, we never intend to hurt anyone, though we now realize that as an unfortunate consequence of the nature of our profession, we sometimes do, and we’re sorry about that. In turn, the kind archdiocese graciously viewed that we have every right to make jokes and speak our mind in a democracy however, that exact same democracy also gives members of the Christian community the right to be offended or hurt by our comments, and more importantly to raise their voices to point that out.
We offered an unconditional apology to the archdiocese and the Christian community for any offence caused to religious sentiments as a result of our jokes. The kind archdiocese acknowledged the fact that we have never been against any community, nor do we bear any ill will towards any community.
AIB believes and supports with complete certainty the notion that every community has the right to live with dignity, honour, and freedom from any form of persecution. We would also like to reiterate that the jokes at the AIB Knockout were not intended as a form of persecution or malice towards any community, for that is not who we are, or what we stand for.
It may be relevant to mention here that during our interaction with the archdiocese, both parties agreed on another important thing; these matters are best solved by frank, patient conversation, not by pointless rabble-rousing or politicization or by taking up adversarial positions for the sake of eyeballs. So we’d like to thank members of the Christian community and the archdiocese for sitting down with us, and hearing us out, and giving us a chance to explain and apologize. It isn’t a courtesy people give each other nearly often enough.
- AIB
