The eye that framed India: How Raghu Rai shaped history through images

From Bhopal to Old Delhi, Raghu Rai's images didn't just record history; they shaped how it is remembered

In an interview that resurfaced on social media after his passing, photographer Raghu Rai spoke about what happened when he lifted the camera to his eye: “....My energies are concentrated, and I look at the world with greater intensity, sensitivity, and exploration… When you start exploring the world, that’s where your journey begins.”

 

Often described as the “father of Indian photography”, Rai, 83, died on April 26, after battling cancer for two years. A recipient of the Padma Shri (1971), he leaves behind a body of work that, over six decades, captured the story of India — its politics, people, tragedies and everyday rhythms.

 

 

Born in 1942 in Jhang, now in Pakistan, Rai’s entry into photography was almost accidental. He had briefly trained as a civil engineer before his elder brother, the noted photojournalist S Paul, recognised his instinctive eye. Among Rai’s earliest published images was a stark black-and-white photograph of a donkey in a Haryana village staring directly into the lens. Paul sent it to Time magazine, which published it. This marked the beginning of a career that would go on to frame some of India’s most defining moments, including the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

 

By the mid-1960s, Rai had joined The Statesman as chief photographer, later contributing to publications such as Sunday and India Today. His images ranged across social, political and cultural themes, united by a distinctive sensibility that combined formal precision with empathy for his subjects. 

Photos: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art

 

That sensibility drew the attention of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who encountered Rai’s work in Paris in the 1970s. The French master mentored him and, in 1977, nominated him to join Magnum Photos, the storied cooperative founded in 1947. Rai became its first Indian member, which placed him firmly on the global photographic map.

 

Fellow photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew remembers Rai’s early images for their “simple yet evocative contrasts”. Those photographs — including those drawn from nature — revealed a deep respect for the subject and a distinctive aesthetic. Bartholomew also recalls a long, collegial relationship that began in his teenage years – Rai was his father Richard Bartholomew’s friend – and evolved into what the media often cast as a rivalry.

 

“We had a friendly rivalry,” Bartholomew says on the phone from Meghalaya. “We would travel together, be in the same car, at the same spot to photograph events of importance. Like in good politics, there could be differences, but there was also respect.” Their professional trajectories — Rai with Magnum, and Bartholomew with French-American news photo agency Gamma Liaison — often intersected, he says, but without diminishing mutual regard.

 

Rai’s legacy lies not only in his assignments but also in the breadth of his published output. Over 20 books on India’s monuments, cities and public figures offer a sweeping visual archive. From portraits of the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Indira Gandhi to studies of Old Delhi, Varanasi, Mumbai and the Taj Mahal, they form a layered portrait of the country.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled his passing and described it as “an irreparable loss to the world of photography and culture”. In his message on X, he said, “His photography had extraordinary sensitivity, depth and diversity. It brought people closer to the different aspects of life in India.”

 

“Our idea of India has been framed by his camera,” says Pramod Kumar KG, co-founder of Eka Archiving Services, a New Delhi-based curatorial and archival advisory. Pramod Kumar, who had been working with Rai in recent years on preserving his archive, emphasises the photographer’s commitment to documentation. “His rich corpus allows India to be seen through a lived reality, not in isolation,” he says. Among his favourites is Rai’s photograph of legendary Carnatic vocalist MS Subbulakshmi, which heightens the singer’s sense of grace and divinity. With Rai’s passing, he adds, “it really is the end of the analog photography”.

 

Roobina Karode, director and chief curator at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, believes Rai’s influence and legacy will endure. She recalls frequent visits to his Mehrauli studio, where he would listen to Kumar Gandharva for hours while she worked on a retrospective of his lesser-known pre-digital images that opened in New Delhi in 2024. Rai, she says, approached photography with an almost spiritual intensity.

 

“He understood India so well, and that’s why he could capture it so well,” Karode says. She recounts one particular photograph, Evening Prayer, Jama Masjid, Delhi (1982), of a woman offering namaaz in her home where fleeting clouds appeared just long enough to complete the frame. For Rai, such moments carried a sense of divinity. “He was always dynamic and charged up as a photographer and as a person,” Karode says. Even late in life, despite illness, he retained an irrepressible energy, recently telling her about a trek in the Himalayas.

 

And then there were those he mentored. Photographer and Museo Camera founder Aditya Arya recalls meeting Rai in the 1970s as a young aspirant. “He kept telling me how to shoot, what to avoid… There can be many photographers but very few mentors and teachers,” Arya says. “He shaped the vision for so many of us.” Even in later years, he adds, Rai would visit the museum carrying books of his work, continuing to engage with younger practitioners.

 

Often described as a humanist photographer, Rai was not without controversy. His picture of a grieving father burying his child during the Bhopal gas tragedy remains one of the most searing, and debated, images in Indian photojournalism. (Pablo Bartholomew also captured the very same moment and was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year in 1985 for it.) Rai defended the act as necessary witness, even as he acknowledged the emotional toll. “I felt very bad; we were like vultures looking for dead bodies,” he said in an interview.

 

Yet, it is precisely this willingness to confront discomfort, even at personal risk, that defined his work. He did not look away. Instead, he held his gaze steady, absorbing and reflecting the realities before him, however painful, so that others might see.

 

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The writer is a Delhi-based independent journalist