The Hindu Photo feature on Raghu Rai’s work

KWhen India and photography are mentioned, no sentence is complete without mentioning Raghu Rai’s name. His work became emblematic of this medium not only because it recorded India but because it revealed it with patience, poetry and an instinctive sense of order.

During his active years, from the mid-1960s until his death, he photographed India as he saw it, from its leaders to its workers, from its musicians and mourners to its monuments and markets. Like all great photojournalists, he captured situations as they emerged, but brought to them a symmetry that was clearly his own. Black and white black people worked hard and it was not a coincidence, these were statements.

There was endless patience in his eyes. Pt. In S. Balachander’s open fingers plucking veins moving against cotton-white clouds in Mahabalipuram, in Mother Teresa’s quiet piety among the sickly and poor in Kolkata, in Indira Gandhi’s majestic presence in the Cabinet in 1967, Rai found not just faces but destinies.

Whether the devastating Bhopal gas leak, rampart And taan Whether it was Kishori Amonkar or the Indian soldiers tending to his wounded Pakistani counterpart, unsure of his fate, Rai went beyond the media. The Taj Mahal series is among the most glowing tributes to the monument.

Padma Shri award winner Raghu Rai has inspired generations of photojournalists and countless others to see India anew. His masterclass ended on April 26, 2026, but his photos will continue to do the talking.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Bustle: Traffic at Delhi’s Chawri Bazaar in 1965. Horse-drawn carriages and workers using wheelbarrows fill the streets.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Formidable power: Members of Congress watch as Indira Gandhi, India’s first female Prime Minister, examines documents in her office in 1967.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

The other side of the war: A wounded soldier of the Pakistan Army who was found on Indian territory in 1971 and taken for treatment.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Blinded by gas: victims of the Bhopal disaster in 1984. The chemical spill killed thousands and left survivors with physical and neurological disabilities for life.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

At its peak: Indira Gandhi posed for a photo overlooking the Himalayas in 1972.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Tender bond: Mother Teresa has a child in Calcutta (formerly Kolkata) in 1979.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Respectful embrace: Veena conductor S. Balachander unites with his instrument in the historic town of Mahabalipuram in 1988.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

New angle: A view of the Taj Mahal, 1977. Rai’s photo series is considered the greatest tribute to the monument.

Photo: “Raghu Rai”

Classic tunes: Vocalist Kishori Amonkar during a concert in Mumbai in 1988.