The hope is that the film raises significant issues about the rights of women, and does not become a diatribe against a minority community that has happened with some recent films, points out Deepa Gahlot.
The Haq trailer reveals that it is a fictionalised account of a landmark case, the echoes of which have still not faded away.
The Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum 1985 case, which came to be known as the Shah Bano case, is one of India's most controversial legal battles, about the right of divorced Muslim women to maintenance from their ex-husband In the aftermath of the fierce debates about secular law versus religious law, the word 'appeasement' was bandied about, with everyone jumping on to the bandwagon of the case, making the woman who was at the centre of the storm, a reluctant celebrity.
Her wrinkled face and light eyes appeared in every publication in the country, and some abroad.
In the film, written by Rashu Nath and directed by Suparn S Verma, the names of the main characters have been changed and their ages significantly reduced.
Shah Bano Begum was a 62-year-old Muslim woman from Indore, a mother of five children, who was divorced by her husband Mohd Ahmed Khan, a prosperous lawyer, after 43 years of marriage.
He had remarried, and threw out his first wife after pronouncing the triple talaq, which is valid under Muslim Personal Law.
He was not, by Sharia law, expected to pay his wife maintenance after the customary iddat period and return of the mehr.
Shah Bano was unable to support herself and filed a petition under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is a secular law that mandates a husband to provide maintenance to his ex-wife if she is unable to maintain herself.
The case was a bitter, long drawn legal battle that reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favour.
The then Rajiv Gandhi government's bowing to backlash, dithering and diluting the law, had a deep social and political impact.
In the film, Shazia Bano (Yami Gautam Dhar) is seen protesting against her husband Abbas's (Emran Hashmi) remarriage, saying a husband is not biryani that can be shared.
Her approaching the courts for her rights is labelled as treason against her community.
Later in court, she accuses Abbas, who is fighting for the imposition of Sharia law in the case, of not even having read the Koran.
In a powerful dialogue -- which summarises the story -- she says that she is not just a Muslim woman, but an Indian Muslim woman, who should be granted the same rights as other citizens.
Muslim leaders saw it as an attack of their personal laws, and a domestic matter became an issue of minority alienation; a slogan painted on a wall says 'Bano to bahana hai; Hum par hamla purana hai.'
Abbas is heard saying that if the whole country is entering the fray, then 'let's give this nation a spectacle.'
Hashmi bravely plays a man who is portrayed as arrogant and despicable. In the trailer, Yami Gautam gets to play various shades of love, betrayal, fear and rage.
A Uniform Civil code is still a contentious issue, but the Shah Bano case became the foundation for more progressive laws years later, which Shah Bano was not alive to see.
The hope is that the film raises significant issues about the rights of women, and does not become a diatribe against a minority community that has happened with some recent films, made with that agenda.
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff
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