Suparn Verma on the relevance of Haq, “Honestly, nothing has changed for women in the last 40 years”

By Subhash K. Jha -

November 10, 2025 - 11:40 AM IST

Filmmaker Suparn Verma’s Haq, which stars Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi, has been receiving a lot of acclaim and steady box office collections. The film is inspired from the real life story of Shah Bano. Verma spoke about the film and more in an interview with us.

Suparn Verma on the relevance of Haq, “Honestly, nothing has changed for women in the last 40 years”

Suparn, what gravitated you towards the touchy topic of Haq?
As a journalist, I have always been lucky enough to kind of be thrown open to stories which are much more localised in nature. And I’ve always been reading a lot, obsessively. So post Sirf Bandaa Ek Kaafi Hai, as part of my courtroom trilogy, I was looking for a subject and the first thing taught in all law schools is the Shah Bano verdict. And as I deep dived into the verdict and into the world and into the story and into the inspiration for it, I discovered there were others as well. And I asked my writer, Reshu Nath, to create a world and explore this story, this judgement. And that's how it began.

But the most remarkable aspect of Haq is that it doesn’t restrict its concerns to only Muslim women alone
Because honestly, nothing has changed for women in the last 40 years. They still fight in the same class, in the same gender bias, same dark lighting, same, you know, taunts. Everything is still the same. There's nothing different for them. The struggles are still the same. They still live in a man's world, you know, whether it's gender parity or anything. It's always, they have to struggle. If men had to face the same issues, those issues would have been solved long ago. And that kind of led to the journey of Shazia Bano.

Haq is more about a single woman fighting for her children’s maintenance than restricted to any one community
I have been raised by a single parent. I was very, very young. I've been raised by a single mother. I've seen her struggle and those images, those visuals are what I burnt into the struggle of Shazia. And that was the journey for me. It's a very emotional story of, you know, a relationship, of marriage, which is a domestic dispute, which became a national issue. And over the years, I have grown as a person, understood nuances of people, relationships, and kind of developed a worldview. And I believe that I'd rather let my films talk than I talk. I'd rather let my work talk, whereby I say whatever I have to say.

25 years ago, Shabana Azmi would have played Shazia Bano?
Shabana Azmi is a goddess of Indian cinema. I would not want to draw parallels between Shabana Azmi ji and Yami Gautam. Because Yami has created Shazia Bano in her heart through sheer hard work. Drawn from her tears, blood-sweating tears. And Yami, a uniquely, amazingly individual actress at this point of time in Indian cinema is at the top of her game. It fills me with pride every time someone says that she's given a career-best performance in her film. I have seen her walk every step of the way. And it's been such a beautiful collaborative journey. She is an absolute powerhouse. And she has just begun. She is going to discover so many great roles and characters and tell such great stories. She is her own unique identity. And she is going to be remembered for a very, very long time in Indian cinema.

Do you think cinema needs to be reformative rather than just entertaining?
Cinema, first and foremost, is always about entertainment and entertainment. While entertaining, if you manage to move the hearts and minds of people, it's great. Even if you don't do so, the basic cardinal rule of cinema is to entertain, and that rule cannot be broken. So, anything that happens along with entertainment is an add-on. If you end up doing much more than entertainment, you will be remembered for a long, long time. And I think that's all of us as filmmakers hope and aspire to do always and try our best. Each filmmaker, everywhere in the world, gives his heart and soul along with his entire crew for that journey of one or two years. And yeah, I mean, more power to us all, so that along with entertainment, if we can achieve much more

And what about Emraan Hashmi in a thankless role?
I looked around for the character Abbas. But the way Emraan with the gusto went into the role, with absolute realism, and the kind of understanding he brought into the role of Abbas, where everyone who comes out of the theatres understands Abbas. It's not about liking or not liking, but they understand his point of view, which was so important to achieve the balance in this film, to bring layers into this film. And I mean, that's his genius as an actor. I mean, he has given such a fabulously fantastic and sustained performance.

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