Haq

It’s often said that if men were the ones to menstruate or give birth, the rules of the world would have been entirely different. Much has been written about women’s strength and multitasking abilities. Hindi cinema itself coined the famous line, “Woh stree hai, woh kuch bhi kar sakti hai.” But can we step aside from these mock-consolations for a moment and ask why women need such reaffirmations in the first place? Director Suparn S. Varma’s Haq is a harrowing tale of a woman who reaches the highest court of the nation seeking what is rightfully hers as a wife, a mother, and a woman.

Until two prolonged and pointed courtroom soliloquies are staged in quick succession late in the film – one is delivered by Emraan Hashmi, the other by Yami Gautam Dhar, with both actors acquitting themselves to perfection – Haq opts for sustained restraint even in its most dramatic passages. It is this temperance that defines the film. It is rare for a Bollywood film these days not to froth at the mouth when talking about India’s principal minority community and summarily stereotyping it. Directed by Suparn S. Varma and written by Reshu Nath, Haq tackles an emotive and sensitive topic. It could easily have gone overboard. That it does not is the film’s greatest strength.

hah Bano is a name etched in the annals of judicial history, as an epitome of resistance and resilience. Of course, in ‘Haq’, though inspired by Jigna Vora’s book ‘Bano: Bharat ki Beti’, the name is Shazia Bano. Why ‘Haq’, revisiting the landmark 1985 Supreme Court judgment on Muslim women’s right to maintenance, had to seek refuge under a long disclaimer and change of name needs no second guess. As things stand, Shah Bano’s daughter has filed a case against the makers (which has been dismissed). With the exceptionally well-made film, we don’t know whether this re-imagination of the historic verdict in favour of Shah Bano will satisfy her daughter or not, but naysayers fearing a dose of Islamophobia can relax.

An individual’s right to dignity being sacrosanct forms the bedrock of Haq. This is especially resonant in the setup in which the film operates — a time and space where religion, laws, societal norms and gender bias are heavily stacked against its protagonist, but one who refuses to go down without fighting the good fight. That is the battle — both in court and outside it — that Shazia Bano (Yami Gautam Dhar) wages for more than a decade against her husband Abbas Khan (Emraan Hashmi). Her demand? That Abbas pay maintenance towards their three children even after he claims to have divorced her through the highly contentious ’triple talaq’ route after marrying a second time.

Those who remember the tumultuous eighties would attest that the landmark Shah Bano case reshaped Indian secularism and the fault lines of identity politics for decades. But beyond the courtrooms, objections from clerics and political outrage, a story of faith, human dignity, and a woman’s rights unfolded within the four walls. Cast within the realm of fiction and point of view, this week director Suparn Varma reimagines the story of a devoted wife abandoned post-remarriage, her husband’s instant triple talaq, a brutal severance of support, and a fierce battle for maintenance that ripples a domestic dispute into a national debate, with deep socio-political ramifications.

Some cases are timeless. The Supreme Court ruling that favoured maintenance for Shah Banoo, a Muslim wife and her kids in 1985, resonates even today, nothing outdated about it. In fact, give it to director Suparn Varma and his writer Reshu Nath for making Shazia Banoo (Yami Gautam Dhar) so relevant that her fight for justice transcends religious boundaries.