Raghu Rai, the Accidental Photographer Who Captured India
As a photojournalist, he went where few dared — documenting war, disaster, power, and beauty with unflinching truth.
Raghu Rai had an unnatural gift of freezing history in time. After all, he was the protégé of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who photographed India extensively during its painful 1947 Partition. “Way back in 1965, when I started using a camera, Delhi was very different,” he told The Quint. One of his favorite shots is of women harvesting wheat in front of Humayun’s tomb, almost unrecognizable today. “There were five, six bullocks…when you look at the picture today, it’s like a photo history of another century.”
And that’s what Raghu Rai did. He captured moments most would ignore, and people most would take for granted. He would be proven time and again in his foresight, earning himself the moniker of the “father of Indian photography.” Over six decades, the accidental photojournalist lensed some of the Indian subcontinent’s most historic moments, from the 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation War to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. Yes, he was an excellent photographer with technically brilliant shots. But it was his commitment to the truth, to reportage that made him exceptional.