[citation needed] Some of the performances of the Kabir Kala Manch have been featured by Anand Patwardhan in his documentary Jai Bhim Comrade.

In May 2011, a crackdown by the Anti-Terrorism Squad on musicians and poets accused of promoting Maoist or Naxalite ideology led to Sheetal Sathe and other members of Kabir Kala Manch going into hiding.

[10] On 3 January 2017, the remaining arrested members of the group — Sachin Mali, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Ghaichor — were granted bail by the Supreme Court of India.

The National Investigation Agency stated in court that the reason they had been arrested was that they had sung songs in which they criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several government policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Jai Bhim Comrade was finally released in 2011, according to Patwardhan, "so that people like Sheetal can come out in the open again and prove that they hadn't done anything wrong, anything more than speak up for the powerless”.