Raghu Rai‘s photojournalistic career began shortly after Indira Gandhi became India’s third Prime Minister. In the course of his assignments for The Statesman, he was given unprecedented access to her private and public life. This led to the creation of an extraordinary archive of images on Indira as he followed her journey as a leader of a country in the throes of consolidating its national identity. Rai assembled a profile of not only of a woman fated to go down in history, but of a woman who lived a life, unlike any other.
Rai’s images capture the small and large facets, the inner and the exterior personas, like no other. From sharing the global stage with fellow political leaders and overseeing assemblies of the Congress Party to lovingly embracing her grandchildren, or quietly arranging her cabinet in the privacy of her home, the Indira Gandhi of Raghu Rai’s images is one of multi-dimensional registers. Stalwart and uncompromising, loving and curious, weary and grieving, a leader and a mother, larger than life and all too human.
– From the ongoing Raghu Rai exhibit at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Life’s longing for itself-that is what I feel my photographs should reflect. Closer home, we have the divine concept of darshan, which is very precious to me. Darshan is not merely seeing a particular person or place, but the experiencing of the reality of a place, a person, the physical and the inner aura, reflected in its entirety that is darshan. That is what I feel great photography is all about.
– Raghu Rai
Dalai Lama: The first encounter
I think it was 1975. I was working with The Statesman newspaper, and when hard news was scarce, we would look for softer news stories. So, when the news editor told us that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was giving teachings over three days in Ladakh, I set off with a reporter, Tavieen Singh. I’d never been to Ladakh. Normally the high-altitude plateau is dry, but we arrived in a downpour. Thousands of monks, nuns and other Buddhists sat in the open air soaked, shivering, still, and impassive as statues. A lama kept blowing his thigh-bone trumpet, but the drizzle just went on and on.
This was a Kalachakra ceremony. It was a barren landscape down by the Sindhu River His Holiness was on a covered stage, while we were sheltered by raincoats. But the monks sat in rigid concentration, dripping.
I photographed the lamas, Tibetans and Ladakhis that first day, and on the second day I asked if I could go into his tent to take more pictures. He agreed. Then, on the third day, Tavleen requested an interview and he gave us a whole hour. I took his portraits. He was gentle, wonderful, and at ease.
As we were driving back to Srinagar (there were no flights then), Tavleen said, See what His Holiness has given me, flaunting a red thread that he had tied round her wrist. What did you get?”
Come on, I replied Between equals we don’t exchange such things. The response was spontaneous. I don’t know why I said it Then I thought, But he is a head of state, a spiritual leader, and you’re saying you are equals?
Much later I realized that my boast was a reflex. His Holiness was so open, informial and warmly welcoming that it seemed as though he were giving me the gift of equality
– Raghu Rai
All quotes from the displays at the Raghu Rai A Thousand Lives Exhibition, Photographs from 1965–2005 at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art from 1st February to 30th April 2024.
