BackPhoto Essay | Prime Expressions
A veteran photographer's impressions of two leadersa contrast full of irony and pathos
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My loyalty is not to one party or a politician but to the spirit of the moment," says photographer Raghu Rai, sitting in his office in New Delhi’s Mehrauli area.
For the last 25 years, one of India’s most acclaimed photojournalists had been waiting for the right moment to venture back into the field that made him a global name—political portraits. That opportunity offered itself in the wake of the general election this year.
On 17 January, after a gap of more than two decades, Rai decided to attend a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting and photograph the proceedings. “I had lost interest in photographing politicians after Indira Gandhi’s death," he says. “Very few leaders were as strong as her, and also, the circumstances of the work changed remarkably over the years."
In the 1970s and 1980s, photojournalists had the kind of access to politicians that is hard to imagine in these times. “We could not only photograph Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet meetings from close quarters but also speak to her," Rai recalls, “We even told her if we had any difficulty doing our job."
One of his memorable portraits of the former prime minister is from 1972, during the Simla Agreement negotiations, when Rai managed to persuade Gandhi to climb up on a narrow parapet so that he could capture her silhouette against the Himalayas. “She gave me 2 hours for that shoot," he says. “She was someone who cared for the arts."
But the awe and admiration Rai felt for her was not unqualified. In the next decade, Rai also took a photograph of a kabadiwalla (scrap collector) sweeping a torn poster of Gandhi into his trashbag—this was after the Emergency (1975-77) had ended and the prime minister had been widely criticized for her ruthless sterilization programme, among other things.
When he went back to photograph the Congress leaders this time, Rai felt the contrast with the past could not have been sharper.
“The photographers were kept several feet away from the leaders by a tight ring of security," he says. “We had to use powerful lenses and could barely discern what was going on in the distance." One thing was clear though. “I was horrified by what I saw of the prime minister of the day (Manmohan Singh)," he says. “He barely spoke, and nobody spoke to him. He was a lonely man."
Rai stayed at the meeting from 9.30am-1.30pm, photographing Singh, CWC president Sonia Gandhi, and her son Rahul Gandhi, who was the face of the party this election. When he went home and started editing the images, Rai was stunned by the expression he saw on Singh’s face—of a fixed stupor, as though he was shell-shocked. Minute by minute, frame by frame, the look remained unchanged, except when Singh was garlanded, along with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi—then there was the hint of a smile.
Intrigued, Rai decided to check the Internet photographs by news agencies like the Press Trust of India (PTI). “I wanted to see if anything different had happened after I had left, since the meeting went on till 4.30pm," he says. But the press images merely confirmed his suspicion: The look on Singh’s face had remained pasted throughout the proceedings, like a mask.
“It was then that I decided to go to the rival camp and spend the same time photographing one of their meetings," Rai says. The chance came up a day later, on 19 January, when he spent 4 hours in the morning at a convention of politicians belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “If Singh was deafening in his silence, Narendra Modi spoke too much," Rai recalls. “There was every emotion and drama going on at the BJP meeting."
Arranged one after the other in Rai’s new book, The Tale Of Two: An Outgoing And An Incoming Prime Minister, these two sets of photographs present a study in contrasts—at once full of irony and pathos. If the outgoing prime minister looks conspicuous for his lack of will, the one waiting in the wings impresses with his will to triumph. The two sections are connected by commentaries by Rai, recollecting his experience of photographing the two leaders and summing up his thoughts and aspirations for a new India.
“I was never a Modi fan," he says. “But on the day he spoke in Parliament, I thought he sounded like a changed man. He spoke without a prepared speech, he did not criticize the Gandhi family or the Congress, and some of his gestures were very heartening." After a pause, he adds: “Who are we to demolish anybody? We can only wait and hope for the best."
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