The film stars Dharmendra, Balraj Sahni, Priya Rajvansh, Sudhir, Sanjay Khan and Vijay Anand in major roles.
The film was constructed around the battle of Rezang La in Ladakh and showcases a fictionalised version of the last stand of Ahir Company, 13 Kumaon led by Major Shaitan Singh.
[2][3] Set against the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the film's main plot concerns a small platoon of Indian soldiers in the hilly terrain of Ladakh.
As a parallel mini-story, before his death, Captain Bahadur Singh falls in love with a Ladakhi girl, Angmo (Priya Rajvansh), while posted in the region.
Brigadier TN Raina was awarded a Maha Vir Chakra and went on to become India's ninth Chief of the Army Staff in 1975; unlike the fate of many other generals of the 1962 war who "faded away in ignominy and disgrace".
[16] The Sino–Indian war is a story of Indian soldiers being treated as "sacrificial lambs", while a nation celebrated Diwali and a government was distracted with other foreign relations in Africa and South Korea.
[citation needed] Gita Vishawnath writes that film has scenes which "represent the active male hero and the passive female collaborator reinforce the gendered narratives of war".
[14] Scenes including the portrayal of a "nationalist mother" who must produce sons for the battlefield and sisters-in-laws who are angry with their brother "because they do not want another woman in the family to suffer from long years of separation".
Despite the "national shame" surrounding losing a war, such scenes helped cover the loss of territory to China, just as Angmo had been forced on by the enemy.
[19] In a 2012 interview with Namrata Joshi for Outlook magazine, composer Madan Mohan's son Sanjeev Kohli recalls that Chetan Anand had given the music director a brief which went something like, "Indeed at the back of the mind was the lost war, but the anguish and suffering of the armed forces and the nation was all pervading.
[20] The Scroll comments that the song "Ho Ke Majboor Mujhe Usne Bhulaya Hoga" has become a famous tune for weary soldiers, as a distraction from the ravages of war.
[18] "Ho ke Majboor" went on to inspire "Sandese Aate Hai" from the film Border, 1997 written by Javed Akhtar, Kaifi Azmi's son-in-law.
Stark shots of jawans in Haqeeqat, bereft of equipment, numbers, supplies, artillery of air support, who die defending their posts in sub-zero temperatures against an external enemy...
[6] In 2012 Namrata Joshi wrote in Outlook magazine that Haqeeqat was to be "a reminder of China’s betrayal" and the feelings that came along with this were reflected in the film, such as the scene of a bayonet stabbing Mao Zedong's Red Book.
[32] In the backdrop of the 2017 Doklam standoff Haqeeqat was again remembered by the Indian media as a comparison for 1962 and the current tensions; to be specific the last stand of Ahir Company, 13 Kumaon led by Major Shaitan Singh at Rezang La.
[33][34][35] In the backdrop of the 2020 China–India skirmishes, on 6 July 2020, an article in The Quint by Pankhuri Shukla comments on the "unsanitized" two-hour long portrayal of war in the film.