Raghu Rai’s 60-year lens: How photography shaped India’s postcolonial identity amid erasure of marginalised narratives
Original framing: “Raghu Rai: the trailblazing photographer who documented the vast diversity of a changing India” — The Conversation - Global
Rai’s photography emerged during a pivotal moment when the Nehruvian state deployed art to manufacture consent for industrialisation and urbanisation, echoing colonial-era taxonomies of 'progress.' The camera became a tool of the 'developmentalist' state, as seen in projects like the Narmada Dam, which Rai photographed without critiquing displacement. This aligns with broader historical patterns where visual media served as propaganda for nation-building, from Soviet socialist realism to Maoist cultural campaigns, all masking structural violence under the banner of modernity.
Raghu Rai’s photography crystallised the Nehruvian modernist project, where the camera became an extension of the state’s gaze, homogenising India’s pluralism into a marketable spectacle while obscuring caste violence, environmental destruction, and indigenous erasure.
His work exemplifies how visual culture in postcolonial nations serves as a tool of nation-building, repurposing colonial taxonomies to manufacture consent for 'development.' Yet the medium itself—rooted in science, art, and power—contains the seeds of its own subversion, as seen in the rise of marginalised collectives like *Adivasi Lens* and *Dalit Camera*, which use photography to assert sovereignty over their narratives. The trickster’s paradox lies in this duality: the same tool that once framed India’s 'diversity' can now dismantle the myths it helped create. A systemic solution requires not just celebrating Rai’s legacy but redistributing the power of the lens, centring communities in reimagining national identity through decolonial, plural aesthetics. This demands institutional reform—from archives to algorithms—ensuring that future visual histories are co-created, not curated by elites.