Raghu Rai (1942–2026): The Grasp Who Outlined South Asian Photography

Raghu Rai (18 December 1942–26 April 2026) was an Indian photographer and probably the most celebrated photojournalist of South Asia. He documented a few of the most important occasions in trendy South Asian historical past, together with the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 and the Bhopal gasoline tragedy of 1984. He additionally labored extensively on main public figures akin to Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Indira Gandhi, publishing books on their lives and legacies. His picture essays appeared in Time, Life, The New York Times, The Independent, and The New Yorker, and he served on the World Press Photo jury from 1990 to 1997.

For over 60 years, he formed a visible language that outlined the Indian subcontinent. From battle to ritual and struggling to magnificence, his lens revealed the poetry inside on a regular basis life. Through him, the lives of tens of millions grew to become a part of a shared visible historical past.

I met and interviewed Raghu Rai over a span of greater than twenty years in Bangladesh and India. Starting from 2004, then 2012, 2016, 2019, and 2024—the final time he was in Dhaka.

This is an abridged model of the sequence of interviews I carried out in 2016 in a number of places in Delhi. I need to thank Naim Ul Hasan of Duniyadari Archive for enhancing the interview, Mahfuj Hassan Sakib for the transcription, and Magnum Photos, the Raghu Rai Foundation, the Raghu Rai Centre for Photography, Creative Image, Amit Chauhan, Nitin Rai, Prem Kumar Gupta, Firoz Farhad Merchant, and Nirvair Singh Rai for his or her help throughout the interviews.

Did you develop up in Delhi?

I got here to Delhi in my mid-twenties. Before that, I used to be in Ambala, Firozpur, and Karnal, which have been a part of better Punjab. My early faculty days have been there. My pictures journey began after coming to Delhi.

You have had such an extended and illustrious profession. What has saved you going for over 50 years?

Basically, it’s the ever-changing spirit of each day life and the ever-changing types and energies of nature. These are fascinating to me. Still, I’d say that I’m a part-time photographer as a result of I must be spending extra time taking photos, which I don’t do. There are occasions after I don’t shoot for days. But then after I shoot, I shoot like a madman. So that can also be there. But the gaps in between generally are typically too lengthy as a result of perhaps I’m enhancing and designing a ebook or getting ready for an exhibition, that are crucial and engaging for me. But the actual fact stays that I’m not engaged on a regular basis the best way I must be. So, pictures has grow to be a type of part-time insanity in my life, however when it comes, it is available in full drive.

You began your profession in 1966 and inside seven years acquired the Padma Shri award in 1972 as the primary Indian photographer. How did that have an effect on you?

Whatever I do or obtain—books, exhibitions, awards—for the primary two to 3 days it’s good. After that, it’s life as common for me. I’m not carrying something on my chest that I’ve finished this or I’ve acquired this—it doesn’t matter. It strikes away in a short time. I’m not static. I don’t dwell in nostalgic nonsense—good or dangerous.

What do you concentrate on your master-heavy company—Magnum’s up to date method? Is the company going via any main reform in its coverage at current?

It goes via main adjustments as a result of the world of pictures is altering. Unfortunately, most pictures magazines like Life and Look are useless and gone. So, it’s important to search for new avenues. It’s not the identical as getting two months’ assignments from some journal to do an amazing job. That type of canvas just isn’t there anymore. There are many extra individuals taking photos as a result of availability of digital expertise. So many people who’re in our 60s or 70s, or perhaps some in our 80s (chuckles), have grow to be like guides who take workshops, take individuals alongside, shoot with them, and educate pictures.

You are a self-taught photographer. What led you to arrange the Raghu Rai Center for Photography?

Well, the necessity was very dire. It felt like a type of accountability and an internal name to share one thing so significant as a result of after we have been younger, we didn’t have anyone to information us. The present faculties educate something and the whole lot. And then there are pictures magazines that are so business that they’re like cousins of one another. So, all this stuff collectively compelled me to start out a centre for pictures with my son Nitin. But I didn’t need to be a full-time trainer as a result of I need to stay a full-time photographer. The concept was to ignite that artistic spark in every particular person and ship them on to their very own journey of creativity, and never educate them skilled pictures of this sort or that style. After finishing a diploma course, if somebody desires to grow to be a painter, she or he ought to find a way to take action and perceive the place that artistic spark comes from. This is the aim of the centre; it’s not restricted to pictures.

At a time when digital media is on the rise and print magazines are in decline, what motivated you to launch Creative Image and make investments your effort and time in producing a high-quality bodily journal?

I do know most magazines are folding up and shedding their circulation. I bear in mind after I informed my outdated good friend Aroon Purie that I used to be going to start out {a magazine}, his first response was that no person would learn it. I stated, “Aroon, this is not for reading; this is for seeing ‘Darsan’ (chuckling).”

A photographer is the one who has pictures, and who can maintain these pictures in his hand, take a look at them, and protect them.

Similarly, a severe journal is the sort that you could maintain, see, learn, really feel via, after which protect. Look again at it additionally. What is a TV display? It is an digital picture being created each time, and an phantasm and pleasure that comes and disappears.

Digital recordsdata are plastic issues. They do not have the identical feeling. Technology is on your development. But you don’t grow to be a machine your self, nor do you flip right into a digital file.

Nothing is dying. People, their consideration span, and their pursuits are being changed by one thing else.

How do you select the works to be featured within the journal?

I choose instinctively. I see plenty of work. I’ve seen the works of the outdated masters for years. And immediately, after I look once more on the works of Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, André Kertész, and Henri Cartier-Bresson that I first encountered as a younger man, I reply to them extra instinctively. Which photos have light with time, and which nonetheless maintain a magic that endures? With expertise, that is what you study. So, I decide the perfect, the masterpieces from every photographer which have survived the take a look at of time.

You see, many issues get washed away by time. But lastly, what stays? This known as power. The picture nonetheless holds that power, that present, which is captured instinctively.

I used to be listening to Kuldeep Nayar on the launch of your Creative Image Magazine throughout the Delhi Photo Festival 2015 at IGNCA. He spoke about his expertise of working with you when he was an editor. Do you suppose you influenced or reshaped how your colleagues approached the usage of pictures in print media?

Of course. Nothing is handed to you. When you exit to {photograph} a political, social or cultural state of affairs, it’s important to have interaction 100 per cent—mentally, bodily and spiritually—to actually seize its essence. Once you will have finished that, upon getting invested thoughts, physique and spirit, you carry again the power you will have captured. You don’t return alone; you’re charged with that power.

So, while you meet the editor and current your work, you carry a better energy as a human being, and I’m positive it leaves an impression on the opposite individual. Editors, in any case, are delicate individuals and are meant to reply to what they see. That is how I constructed my relationship with them.

My first editor at The Statesman was really Evan Charlton—a British man—who was an amazing man. I lined the break up of the Congress Party in 1969 and bought some very up-close and private photographs. The Statesman solely revealed one picture. I despatched the pictures to The Times in London, the place three of them have been revealed. My resident editor in Calcutta and Delhi noticed the newspaper carrying three of my pictures and my identify, and he stated, “How can you sell your pictures outside? Why haven’t you published here?” I stated, “Because you people cannot see the pictures—what is good and what is bad!” And he was very indignant with me—how may I promote my photos exterior? Evan Charlton despatched a telex message to the resident editor: “Please congratulate Raghu Rai for his excellent photographs, and why don’t you use them.”

Then got here Kuldeep Nayar, with whom I labored for the longest time and had nice chemistry. And then I used to be with M. J. Akbar on Sunday journal. They have been additionally superb pals. Then lastly, ten years at India Today with Aroon Purie, whom I’ve identified for a very long time.

It was the understanding and my dedication to giving them the perfect, after which their respect for printing these works within the legit and required house.

You talked about the function and affect of Deepak Puri, South Asia General Manager and Photo Editor at Time, within the subject of photojournalism. Could you elaborate on that?

He was principally a heat, fantastic, sincere individual. And very useful. So varied photographers who have been working for various magazines reached out to him at any time when that they had any issues. He was a type of individuals who supported and helped all people; that’s why individuals gifted him good pictures, necessary iconic pictures, with which he created his personal archive of attention-grabbing works. His networking with the federal government, airways, and embassies was such that he may get you a visa very quickly; he may make you fly by any airline. So, in return, many photographers labored for Time journal for a few years. He even gave me a clean cheque from Time journal for an project inside two weeks of our first assembly. That displays the type of heat, belief, and community he had with individuals. Even James Nachtwey and Sebastião Salgado—at any time when any of us wanted something, he was at all times there for us.

I used to be studying your critique of up to date pictures, the place you mentioned photographers influenced by Western kinds. How would you outline your personal method to pictures?

I do not need a method. Styles come and disappear, and magnificence turns into an perspective. Style turns into a method of taking a look at issues. See, you’re strolling within the streets, and one thing from someplace says ‘hey’, and it’s important to click on it. You don’t have time to suppose or plan. So the place is the type? I’m not keen on kinds. To put it in a really apt method, it’s like Kahlil Gibran’s line: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” My photos are the identical; I’ve to mirror life’s eager for itself. They’re not my pictures.

If somebody have been to say that you’ve got developed a distinctly Indian or Eastern type of pictures, how would you reply to that?

No. Let me let you know, there isn’t a Eastern type, British type or French type. Where we may be completely different is the truth that I used to be born and introduced up right here. And I’ve been photographing my nation, India, very deeply in comparison with some other Western photographer, besides Bresson. He may work wherever very instinctively. So intuition is the largest asset, which provides you very valuable moments—moments that are very deep and intense and embedded within the cultural lifetime of the individuals. The distinction is that, as a result of I’ve lived and realized right here, I perceive many nuances and particulars. Compared to any Western photographer who involves India, my photos carry a deeper sense of these nuances and a richer element of my nation.

The individuals in your photos typically appear to tackle a sculptural, virtually iconic high quality. What is it in your aesthetic that captivates the viewers?

I’ll say my photos of each day life ought to mirror plenty of internal music. Because music is one thing so soulful for human beings that every of us has some type of rhythm and music enjoying inside us. When we join with actuality and each inch of house mentally, bodily and spiritually, the music and rhythm inside us are mirrored within the energies round us.

And that rhythm makes life playful. That play of life has its personal construction. These are very sculpture-like qualities of characters taking form in entrance of you. So, that is one thing very distinctive while you absolutely attend to actuality or nature. With your intuitive responses, this music performs the tune of life proper in entrance of you. So, nature and life start to carry out for you. Because you’re inside them and they’re inside you. You will not be exterior it.

I used to be considering of your {photograph} of Ravi Shankar on the boat, together with his hair blown by the wind. What have been you feeling in that second?

You see, that is what occurs while you join 100 per cent. When you’re utterly devoted to experiencing what’s happening round you, then nature begins to carry out for you. We have been doing a particular sequence on nice masters of Indian classical music. I had been photographing him at his residence in Delhi, in live shows, and in all places. So, he stated, “You must come with me to Varanasi, where I have a school where we teach music.” We spent days whereas he was instructing his college students, having fun with himself being with them. Later within the night, I requested him what we might do now. He stated, “My most favourite aspect of being here is to spend the evenings on the Ganga. Let’s go to the Ganga and have a cup of tea.” The boatman knew him. We have been simply going within the boat, then the breeze got here, the magic occurred, and we bought the image.

Can you bear in mind the primary time you met filmmaker Satyajit Ray?

There was a pictures contest named the ‘Made for Each Other Photography Contest’, they usually invited Satyajit Ray and me to be a part of the jury. That is the place I met Satyajit Ray for the primary time. But Manik’da, , the primary day we met, stated, “Raghu, your picture—the photograph where the woman is pushing the cart and the husband is in front—is such an amazing image that I can never forget it.” So, that was one thing necessary to me.

That was an image in my Delhi ebook. A girl is pushing a cart whereas her husband walks forward, with a constructing and stacked packing containers within the background, and he stated the picture had stayed deeply ingrained in his thoughts. That was fairly a praise for me, coming from a maestro like him.

How do you method your imaginative and prescient, and the way ought to younger photographers select their topics?

It may be very easy. To me, after I transfer round, the whole lot issues in my house. Big, small, important, insignificant—the whole lot issues in my house. So, while you study to narrate to each inch of house, issues come right into a rhythm. If the whole lot issues, then the whole lot has some which means and worth. And in the event you take a look at the world like this, then the entire world may be very significant. So is your body.

You have photographed refugees of the Bangladesh War and figures just like the Dalai Lama, and also you your self are a refugee. When you have been 5, your loved ones fled Jhang in Pakistan. Did you ever contemplate returning there to take pictures?

When I went to Pakistan in 1977 with our international minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, this was the primary time any Indian international minister went to Pakistan. Some of us journalists from India had gone with him. Zia-ul-Haq was the president again then. After the reception for our minister, we have been all invited to the presidential home. So, when he met every certainly one of us, he made it some extent to ask us whether or not we have been born there or in India. I stated, “I was born here in Pakistan.” He requested, “Where?” I replied, “In Jhang, Punjab.” He then requested, “Would you like to visit?” I stated, “I would love to.” So, the following day, I bought a presidential automotive from Zia-ul-Haq to go to my hometown, the place I used to be born.

We seen a deep connection between you and the crops in your six-acre faculty backyard. What is the connection between nature and the way you’re feeling?

You know, the connection is at all times there. Because I really like nature. For me, nature has abundance, tenderness, and a freshness of its personal variety. Tending to it and giving it time rejuvenates me. I stroll into the house on the farm, and among the many crops and the timber that I’ve planted over twenty years, someplace nature has an attractive shock ready for me. And I take a look at it, the tenderness of the leaves, the freshness of the colors, and the flowers which have simply sprouted out of nothing.It signifies the magic that may revive you another time in any given state of affairs. Only nature can do one thing like that. Even if a tree is 100 years outdated or 100 and fifty years outdated, when spring comes, it’s full of tender, sprouted leaves and flowers. We people can’t try this. So, this is essential for me.

Amirul Rajiv is an artwork historian, curator, and co-founder of Duniyadari Archive.

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