Liberation War lensman passes away
Internationally acclaimed Indian photographer Raghu Rai, who photographed the Bangladesh Liberation War, died of cancer in New Delhi yesterday.He was 83. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. An Instagram post from the verified account “raghurai.official” announced his death. He was born in 1942.In 2013, Rai was conferred the “Friends of Liberation War Honour” by the Bangladesh government for his contributions to the Liberation War.According to a report published by The Statesman in 2021, Rai was only five years into his career when the war erupted in March 1971. He was dispatched by the newspaper to document the exodus of refugees, who would eventually number around 10 million, as they streamed into West Bengal and neighbouring states to escape atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army.He could immediately empathise with the refugees, having himself been a child of partition when his family was uprooted from their hometown in what is now Pakistan. Rai worked at a furious pace, sending back images after images that the newspaper faithfully carried, making him a household name in India while unfolding the horrors that marked the liberation struggle.However, his entire body of negatives from that period was lost and remained missing for decades until they were recovered quite by accident. This rediscovery eventually led to the publication of Bangladesh: The Price of Freedom, brought out to mark the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence.Reflecting on the rediscovery, Rai said he had been deeply involved in documenting the suffering of refugees, driven in part by his own experience. The negatives, he noted, had been stored away in a bundle and “never saw the light of the day” until they were found after nearly 40 years by his assistant while scanning archival material.He also recalled that many international photographers, including Don McCullin, had documented the refugee crisis at the time, and he had even admired their work, largely forgetting his own. Upon rediscovering his photographs decades later, he realised that his work carried its own intensity and message, prompting him to share it with the public.The photographs capture the refugee camps, the mass exodus, and the turmoil of the time, offering a powerful visual account of a defining moment in South Asian history. He also documented frontline moments during the war, travelling with advancing forces and later witnessing scenes in Dhaka following the surrender of Pakistani troops on December 16, 1971.He received the Padma Shri in 1972 for his powerful photography during the Bangladesh Liberation War.Rai’s photography is often described as a “visual record” of modern India. He captured powerful images after the Bhopal tragedy, one of the worst industrial disasters in history, according to NDTV.He was known for his photography books. Some of his most popular works include Raghu Rai’s India: Reflections in Colour and Reflections in Black and White,In 2019, he won the Académie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, one of the top international honours in photography.
