Haq

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ruling that favoured maintenance for Shah Banoo, a Muslim wife and her kids in 1985, resonates even today, nothing outdated about it.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.

Hindi cinema operates in extremes. On the one hand, you have the blatant Islamophobia and sectarianism of recent propaganda films. These films dig around in history to single out a particular community. The other approach is rarer: calm, sober-sided films made with a measure of dignity and intent. Yet these films also have a tendency to hedge, to oversimplify. Too often, they reduce complex realities to pat displays of solidarity. I felt that way about Ground Zero, a Kashmir-set military film with a passing yet palpable concern for local lives. And I feel much the same about Haq, which dramatises the landmark Shah Bano case from the 1980s. Incidentally, both films star Emraan Hashmi.

Yami Gautam and Emraan Hashmi’s latest film, Haq, brings a landmark case from the past to the forefront. The Shah Bano case, where the Supreme Court upheld Allahabad High Court’s verdict that gave senior lawyer Mohammed Ahmad Khan the order to pay lifelong maintenance to his estranged wife Shazia Bano Begum, is a case that changed the trajectory of muslim women and their rights in India. Inspired by the case and based on Jigna Vora’s book Bano: Bharat Ki Beti, Suparn Verma’s film fictionalises the landmark case, adding emotional depth and drama to make it into a solid and impactful film.