Raghu Rai, one of India’s most renowned photographers, died at a private hospital in Delhi on Sunday. He was 83. His son, photographer Nitin Rai, said he had been battling cancer for the past two years.
“Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago but he was cured. Then it spread to the stomach, that too was cured. Recently the cancer spread to his brain and then there were age related issues too,” he told news agency PTI.
Who was Raghu Rai?
Raghu Rai was born in 1942 in Jhang, Punjab, then in British India (now in Pakistan). He began learning photography in 1962 under his elder brother, photographer S Paul.
Rai started his professional career in the mid-1960s and joined The Statesman in New Delhi in 1965 as a photographer. During this period, he covered a range of national events and, in 1968, visited Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram when British band The Beatles were there.
In 1976, he left The Statesman and moved to the weekly magazine Sunday as a picture editor. In 1977 he was nominated to join Magnum Photos by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.
He left Sunday in 1980 and later joined India Today, where he worked as picture editor and photographer. Rai documented the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster and later developed a long-term project on its impact. He wrote the book Exposure: A Corporate Crime on it.
Over his career, he published more than 18 books on India’s people, culture and cities, including Raghu Rai’s India: Reflections in Colour and Reflections in Black and White. His work appeared in major international publications such as Time, Life, The New York Times, Newsweek and The New Yorker.
Rai received the Padma Shri in 1972 for his coverage of the Bangladesh War and later received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Tributes pour in for Raghu Rai
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge described him as a towering figure in Indian photography whose work, including coverage of the Bangladesh Liberation War and portraits of national leaders, remains part of India’s visual memory.
Former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said Rai captured “the soul of India” through decades of work, from conflict zones to everyday life, calling his images a lasting record of truth and history.
Leaders including PDP’s Waheed ur Rehman Para also paid tribute, calling him a legend whose lens preserved defining moments of India’s social and political journey.
