Raghu Rai, pioneering Indian photographer, 1942–2026

The photographer and pioneer of Indian photojournalism, Raghu Rai, has died.

Producing over 30 books on topics together with Tibetan exile, Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi and Sikhs in India, Rai’s most well-known mission got here in 1984 when he coated the chemical catastrophe at Bhopal, first for India Today, which featured his surprising {photograph} targeted on the corpse of single younger boy, his blinded face staring out of the rubble. Later he was commissioned by Greenpeace and produced the ebook Exposure: A Corporate Crime, and three exhibitions that toured Europe, the US and Bangladesh.

Rai had joined India Today two years earlier from The Statesman the place he started his profession in 1966. Rai was born in Jhang in British India (Pakistan after partition) and, after initially learning civil engineering, adopted within the footsteps of his older brother, referred to as S Paul, who was already taking pictures. It was he who entered Rai’s {photograph} of a donkey right into a weekly competitors run by The Times in London. It received, and Rai was capable of stay off the modest prize cash for a month.

In 1977, underneath the patronage of Henri Cartier Bresson, Rai grew to become a member of Magnum Photos. In 1972 he was awarded the Padma Shri for his work on the 1971 India-Pakistan War and the plight of Bangladeshi refugees.

‘It’s fulfilling to know one goes deeper into the layers of complexity of my nation,’ he instructed the Observer in 2010. ‘I like being among my own people. I merge with them. I don’t carry digital camera baggage, I don’t put on trendy garments. I’ve one digital camera with a zoom lens so I’m not alarming individuals; nobody is saying, “Here comes a photographer!”’