A group of ghagra and ghunghat-clad women hold head pans with soil and smile shyly as they lock eyes with the camera. These artefacts — variously part of a collection coming up for auction in Mumbai; an archive on display in Gurugram; and an exhibition on view in New Delhi — draw our attention to a powerful ally of the independence struggle: The photograph. No revolution or movement, captured through the alchemy of light on silver crystals, is ever truly over: its life extends for as long as the image remains.
A postcard with a photograph of Kasturba Gandhi and her husband, Mahatma Gandhi, carries an inscription that reads, “Companions on the endless journey”. Mugshots of 20 men, including Bhagat Singh, form a geometrical shape on a poster titled “Lahore Conspiracy Case Accused”.
At Museo Camera, press photographer Kulwant Roy’s archive, gifted to the Gurugram museum founder Aditya Arya in the 1980s, is on display this week. In it, we see a range of images taken by Roy between the 1930s and ’60s, including candid shots of national leaders as well as common citizens. Separately, freedom fighter Anand T Hingorani’s archive is up for auction by Mumbai headquartered Saffronart on August 18 and 19. Hingorani, who was one of the few men from the Sind Province to participate in the Dandi March in 1930, remained a close associate of the Mahatma — the archive, currently on view, comprises of artefacts like Gandhi’s watch gifted to Hingorani, booklets on the rules of Sevagram ashram, compilations of Gandhi’s writings on students and women, edited and published by Hingorani, personal correspondence between the duo, and photographs by Kanu Gandhi and Dady Rustom Dossabhoy Wadia, some of which were converted to prints and postcards.
The circulation of these visuals was aided, in large part, by technological advances in printing and photography. Early on in his career, Roy used a Speed Graphic, a sheet-film camera that required a good deal of manual strength to handle. Later, as cameras like Rolleiflex and Leica entered the market — more portable, offering a larger number of exposures — Roy switched to using them. The immediate aftermath of independence was a moment of great confusion. In both images, the worker as well as the factory serve as symbols of national pride. Seventy-nine years on, the idea and the images endure.
Though composition of the image still required skill, Roy was certainly able to take more photographs of the national leaders during momentous occasions, such as Simla Talks between the British government, Congress and Muslim League leaders in 1946, the signing of the Indian Constitution in January 1950, and the building of the Bhakra Nangal Dam in the 1950s. As the Hindustan Times reported on August 15, 1947, of the normal complement of 1,100 Indian Civil Services (ICS) officers that served in the administration, only 450 stayed back after the 15th.
The people building the temples of modern India (as Nehru famously said of the Bhakra Nangal Dam) and the silhouette of the steel plant billowing smoke into the air are icons of a nation well on its way to claim its place in the world after centuries of oppression.
