Kabir Khan thinks Bollywood is to blame for culture of harassment

After the kick start of the #MeToo movement in India, it appears that the country is loaded with a prevailing culture of harassment and famed filmmaker Kabir Khan thinks Bollywood is responsible.

The director of Bajrangi Bhaijan in a panel discussion held at a film festival named ‘MeToo at MAMI’ in Mumbai revealed that the industry has played an essential role in creating a platform for a culture of harassment where alleged offenders are given protection.

“In a certain sense, honestly, we all have been complicit. I have seen people all around me fall left right and centre. These are people I’ve worked with, represented me, people who were doing for casting me, they were my actors. There were hushed whispers about most of them.

There was a general consensus that most of the people whose names have come up are people who we seemed to have known about, but we all did keep quiet,” he stated.

The director went on to share his experience of him always getting to hear about a specific person but ending up ignoring like most of the others.

I came here 10-12 years ago as a documentary filmmaker. I got into the system. I was with Yash Raj Films for six years. There would be so many occasions where one would hear about a certain behaviour from this person. But we all in a certain way ignored,” he said.

Moreover he went on to add: “The biggest change coming out because of MeToo movement is that we aren’t going to do that anymore. The moment I hear even a murmur that something like this (happened), I am going to come down like a ton of bricks. I didn’t earlier."

He also mentioned that the issue is something he makes sure, stays away from his sets narrating that: “On my last web series, one of my ADs did come to me just last week. She was with us for a very brief while, one international schedule, and she told me about two incidents when she felt uncomfortable.

I told her she should’ve told me. We are very accessible, but she said she thought I would be busy, and this happened on the last day. Fortunately, they were not very serious in nature. But apart from those two incidents, it hasn’t really happened on my set.”

The esteemed filmmaker recently removed the name of Vikas Bahl from his upcoming film ‘83’ after sexual harassment allegations made his way amidst the frenzy.