Kulwant Roy: A Pioneer of Indian Photojournalism

"Photographs may be worth a thousand words but they are open to a thousand interpretations. Where images create an impression, these also provoke expression. Texts can tend to be didactic. Photos, never. The democracy of a lens remains unparalled. You see what was there. Nobody is telling you what may have happened, could have been."

- Ranjan Roy, journalist

“Life is not black and white, it has colour. But why then do black and white pictures appeal in a way colour pictures do not. This is, I think, because black and white pictures are not made of those two polar opposites, those two extremes. Black and white pictures are about grey and the greys of life, the uncertainities, the dilemmas, the half tones of that intermediacy which is the name of most historic moments, the frame of mind that knows no name, the mood that cannot be put in a description, the texture of waiting, of expectation, of the undigited digit of life, the undated day, the unnamed sentiment, not ghulami (servitude) or azadi (freedom), but arzu (desire) and intezari (longing)...”

- Gopalkrishna Gandhi (the 22nd Governor of West Bengal who served from 2004 to 2009, and the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi)

A prescient photograph taken in 1941 depicts Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (the then Prime Minister of India) signing an autograph for a young Kulwant Roy who stands attentively by his side.

What a joy it must have been for Roy, a photojournalist, to enjoy this close proximity with one of the founders of the Indian nation.

This intimacy with the freedom movement distinguishes Roy’s work - he was able to capture its most formidable personalities in their relaxed and unguarded moments.

Embedded in Roy’s photos is also an excitement and optimism, a sense that we are witnessing decisive, progressive moment in Indian modernity. Roy’s photographs remain a passionate document of the historical moment in which they stood.

Speed was a critical factor for news photographers, within whatever parameters were imposed by their cameras. In the early days of his career, Kulwant Roy used a Speed Graphic, a heavy, sheet-film camera requiring great manual dexterity to handle. Later, he went on to lighter twin-lens cameras like the Rolleiflex; later still, the even more portable Leica, both of which offered larger numbers of exposures.

The composing of frames was a matter of split-second timing and it was only in the darkroom that the photographer could, if he so wished, adjust or re-align the heft and balance of his picture.

That unattributed photographs were being unwittingly used by agencies outside the country is proved by the case of one of Roy’s most famous — and rare — pictures, that of Mahatma Gandhi and MA Jinnah engaged in what appears to be a disagreement. Though usually credited to the Hulton-Getty Archive/Getty Images, it belongs without doubt to Kulwant Roy.


[This photo is from the Getty Images collection.]

The iconic images of the Bhakra Nangal dam, many of which were shot by Roy, became the best-known face of this development envisioned for the new nation state.

Since many of the prominent newspapers had staff photographers, it was becoming difficult for individual photographic agencies to sustain themselves. For example, Captain D. Arjun worked for the Statesman, Amarnath for Indian Express, and N. Thiagarajan for the Hindu.

Restless by nature, and enjoying the freedom that came from being a bachelor, Roy sought to tap the growing demand for Indian photographs in foreign magazines, among them the German magazine Stern. He decided to travel to over 30 countries from 1958 to 1961, and made lists of pictures that he would take along with him, as well as contacts in each country that he would visit.

The visuals he took with him were of the people and landscapes of Kashmir, the pilgrimage to Amarnath, and other religious fairs and festivals. Roy funded his trip from the sale of his images, and continued to send photographs to the contacts he made abroad even after his return to India, until the late 1960s.

Roy’s travels included Japan, Hong Kong, USA, Panama, Brazil, and various European countries. The negatives and prints of these photographs were mailed back to his address in Delhi, fate was to strike a cruel blow to the unsuspecting sender. On returning to Delhi in December 1961, Roy discovered that his negatives had been delivered to his address, but were stolen.

A shattered man, he spent the next few years looking for the negatives and prints in garbage dumps and open spaces around Delhi. He also put an advertisement in newspapers appealing for their return, but without any luck.

Roy continued his photography till the late 1970s, but his heart was no longer in his work.

In the late 1970s he was diagnosed with cancer and thus spent the last few years of his life in the company of close friends.

Significant among his later coverage were images of the war with China in 1962, and with Pakistan in 1965, shot directly at the front.

The seventh Non-Aligned Movement Conference held in Delhi was the last event that he photographed before he died in 1984.