Set against pre-Emergency India, Suparn S. Varma’s film, which boasts sterling performances by Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi, plays to the gallery, but it does so without bombast or malice
The word Haq carries multiple connotations in Suparn S. Varma’s eponymous film. There’s the personal one, relating to a husband and wife’s marital dispute that pits the word’s dual literal meaning of ‘entitlement’ and ‘right’ against one another. The husband, a thriving lawyer named Abbas Khan (Emraan Hashmi) from pre-Emergency India, feels entitled one day that, despite being already married with three children, he could bring home another wife. The wife, Shazia Bano (Yami Gautam Dhar), the one who openly accepted him in front of friends and family during their nikah, feels that her right to a sacrosanct relationship has been compromised upon the arrival of the other woman.
Initially, the wife rejects the drastic change and stands up for herself. She is then comforted and coaxed by the husband into believing that she is the only queen or begum of their pretty paradise, and the second wife is only an obligation he had to fulfil. He has lied, of course, and that surfaces sooner than later, but Abbas’ deception cannot be questioned because his entitlement also allows him to decide how his mistakes will be dealt with.
Shazia’s self-respect is sparked once again, and she leaves home to return to her parents’ in interior Uttar Pradesh, hanging on to her three children and some paltry luggage. Her father is a local Maulvi who doesn’t make much, so the need for monetary maintenance from Abbas Khan, now living a rejuvenated life with his much younger wife and another child, is mandatory for a collective well-being. Abbas obliges initially, but the measly amount in relation to his vast earnings stops reaching Shazia after a point, all because of an egotistical symptom of being disobeyed by a wife of his.
A moral and socio-political battle
What he doesn’t know, though, is that the woman he has tried to casually sideline is a quiet storm of her own kind. And invoking the second connotation of the film’s title, Shazia Bano wages a moral and socio-political battle that is to soon become the beacon light to not only all the minority women such as herself, but also those who fall under the spell of the misinterpreters of faith and tradition.
Inspired by the momentous Shah Bano case that was concluded in 1985 after a ten-year journey, Haq deals with a subject that still echoes loudly in the Indian social discourse: the idea of a secular identity against the presence of a complex religious diversity. The original case transpired at a time when the country was an adolescent in its growth towards a harmonious co-existence, but also mentally ripe enough to be swayed in a completely different direction.
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Why Varma and his writer Reshu Nath desired now, when the topics of triple talaq and the Muslim Personal Law or Sharia are such hot buttons, to relay this story is a question best posed to them, although their intent is luckily devoid of any malice. It could be a wish to trace a recent past when the judiciary held the most meritorious position in the face of identity politics. It could be the urge to discuss women’s rights and dignity from a lesser-known vantage point and simultaneously highlight the need for leadership that is learned, objective and compassionate. Regardless of the motives, Haq stands as an engaging film that navigates an extensively murky path to arrive at a conclusion fortunately siding with the most deserving candidate: the least equipped of a minority group of a struggling pluralist nation.
While Reshu Nath’s script (based on Jigna Vora’s book Bano: Bharat ki Beti), tightly wound at a 136-minute runtime, neatly juggles information with a compelling human story, Varma’s craft strikes a delicate balance between form and subject matter. The film reimagines the 1970s and ’80s without too much fuss, and the matter-of-fact approach with which both the upper and lower crests of the Muslim community are etched helps the story to assume precedence.
It is strange to note that in its deep cinematic repository, India has only a handful of authentic portrayals of Muslim life to boast about. Haq doesn’t attempt to punctuate that, but it also stays mindful of not romanticising its people for the sake of an artificial richness. There is still a trace of homogeneity in the storytelling, with characters of different regions across the country carrying the same linguistic cadence (the stereotypical tehzeeb in the delivery of the dialogues). However, that’s a minor grievance while dealing with a much bigger pursuit.
Love, hurt and defiance
The many junctures of the courtroom proceedings become checkpoints in the narrative, which works in vignettes. Various finer points of the legal framework — both secular and religious — such as Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and Article 44 of the Constitution, as well as the nuances of the Quran and Sharia, are brought up myriad times in the film.
The information, still, doesn’t become an overload because the arc lights remain on Shazia Bano entirely, who tests her spirit and ploughs on towards a sense of vindication that always feels elusive. More importantly, she is forced to come to grips with the fact that she is also dismantling the family that she built with her own care and time, while taking on the man she once was fiercely devoted to.
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Yet, that’s where she revels the most. Haq emphasises that although Shazia isn’t as functionally literate as Abbas, the fidelity in her heart is more than enough to ethically distinguish her from her husband. The man in the fray has every tool on his side — from the religious clerics and societal sympathy to occupational experience and guile — but the woman knows the scriptures in their truest essence to usurp him.
Yami Gautam Dhar is lucent as Shazia Bano. The writing risks turning her character into a vessel for platitudes and monologues, but the actor grounds it in a recognisably human mix of love, hurt and defiance. Emraan Hashmi becomes the perfect foil to her as he plays Abbas Khan with an infuriating composure, as a man who is well aware of his misdeeds as well as the elite position he stares everything down from. The rest of the cast, including Sheeba Chaddha, Danish Husain, Aseem Hattangady and Vartika Singh, too, fare quite well.
Ultimately, Haq emerges as a satisfying experience on the back of its principal performances, along with the clarity to play to the gallery without much bombast. It does play fast and loose with the real-life case and uses liberties at its will, but it all serves as part of a desire to make the film accessible yet rewarding. This one doesn’t break much ground, but it doesn’t misuse its position either.
