The flashbulbs of freedom

The name Kulwant Roy will probably ring very few bells.But as the images on this page (a mere sampling from a huge collection ofapproximately 8,000) indicate, we have a lot to thank him for. A photojournalistduring modern India's most exciting years — the freedom struggle and thefirst few decades of the new republic — Roy was the proverbial fly on thewall, his faithful lens always ready to capture Gandhi and the Muslim League orJawaharlal Nehru welcoming Jackie Kennedy.For the first time sincehis death, a collection of his best photos — curated by family friend andadopted nephew Aditya Arya — has been published in book form. Co-authoredby Arya and Indivar Kametkar, History in the Making: The Visual Archives ofKulwant Roy (Harper Collins) has a foreword by Manmohan Singh. "Roy's photos aresources as well as products of history," writes the PrimeMinister.If Roy's byline is far less prominent than those of hiscontemporaries — Henri Cartier-Bresson or Margaret Bourke-White —who also shot in India at the time, it is perhaps because of what Arya describesas the "collaborative process" of being a press photographer. "These photographswere a collaborative effort, created at a time when bylines and individualcredits were not sought after or guarded the way they are today," says Arya, acommercial photographer based in Delhi. "These men were in and out of eachother's darkrooms, sharing negatives and much more. They were all professionalsin their own right but, more importantly, they were friends."Thelonesome, chain-smoking Roy was born in 1914 in Bagli Kalan, a village in thenorthern heartland of Ludhiana, and orphaned before he was ten. A kind relativesent him to Lahore to study, and it was there that he first met Arya'sgreat-uncles, who ran a photo studio. Roy learnt the basics from them and soonwas a full-time apprentice.In 1940, he moved to a Delhi seethingwith political activity, and set up his own studio in Old Delhi. Roy headed theAssociated Press Photographs agency from the thirties to the seventies. One ofhis close friends was Homai Vyarawalla, India's first professional womanphotographer. "With all good wishes to you all," wrote Roy to her on a postcardfrom Geneva in the first week of December 1958. "Wishing a very happy new year,though very much in advance." Displaying a wry sense of humour, he added apost-script : "I met Queen Nariman in Geneva. She is not willing to get back to'king' Faroque till he finishes his schooling. My sympathies for the 'poorking'."Arya has spent over two years painstakingly archiving Roy'svast collection that provides a visual narrative of India in the making."Pictures are probably the only real archive of the freedom struggle," he says."These images are open to a different interpretation every time they are seen.They capture the decisive moments of a singular period in India's history andthe triumphs and tragedies of the rebuilding of a nation, from Roy's uniqueperspective. What is remarkable is that he is telling the story his way and notas another person would have, and as indeed many have, told it. Which is whatmakes them priceless."When Arya was a youngster who was himself justdeveloping a close relationship with the camera, Roy was a frequent visitor totheir home. "Mamaji was a bachelor and spent most of his time behind the lens,"recalls Arya, who uses the honorific of maternal uncle for Roy. "He was a dailyvisitor to our house in Delhi University, where he would saunter in after duskand read the newspaper." Those were simple times. "Nobody informed before theyvisited and everyone who came was sent away only after my mother had fed them anelaborate vegetarian Punjabi meal." Over piping hot dal and two subzis andraita, Roy usually brought the Arya family up to speed with the day'shappenings. Young Arya was fascinated by his rakish air and ready anecdotes thatreferenced Gandhi and Nehru, the British officials, his experiences as an aerialphotographer in the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) and his overseas travels toSwitzerland, Germany and Japan."Mamaji was summarily dismissed fromthe RIAF and took great pride in telling us why," says Arya. "As the story went,Indians in the RIAF were not allowed to use the swimming pool on any day exceptSunday because the water was changed on Monday. Now Mamaji was a short-temperedman. One particular Sunday, he was so irritated with the sub-standard treatmentmeted out to Indians, he went and defecated in the swimming pool. He told thestory with immense glee." Although the rebellious Kulwant did anglicise his name— from Kulwant Rai Sharma to Kulwant Roy — he was no stooge.Fiercely patriotic, his disdain of the Raj was matched only by his love for allthings Indian.Roy's images range from straight photographicdocumentation of political events and personalities to photo essays on Kashmirand Kedarnath, and some very original images of landmark projects like theinauguration of the Bhakra Nangal Dam. "But politics was always the spinal cordof Kulwant Roy's story," says Arya. In his photographs, leaders parlay, addressparty workers and declaim to crowds. There are images from the freedom struggleof Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Liaquat Ali Khan,Stafford Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence, Viceroy Wavell and the Mountbattens andlater scenes of Chou En-Lai and Marshal Tito arriving in India. Nehru, inparticular, is often captured welcoming foreign heads ofstate.Noticing Arya's interest in photography, Roy started takinghim to the Republic Day parades to give him an opportunity to meet hiscolleagues and watch them at work from the vantage point of the press enclosureopposite the presidential base. Roy's pictures were published in severalEuropean magazines and Indian newspapers such as The Hindustan Standard. "Thesummer after I finished school in 1977, I worked in his studio, spending thewhole day in the dark room, washing prints, for a hefty sum of 20 rupees a day,"recalls the now 50-year-old Arya. Initially, Roy used the Mamiyaflex 120 mmtwin-lens camera but later moved on to the Leica, considered the Rolls-Royceamong cameras. He left both to Arya.One of the biggest blows inRoy's life came in 1961. On an overseas tour, Roy packed his photographs intoboxes and mailed them to his India address. The boxes never reached. He neverrecovered from this loss, and spent the next few years fruitlessly going fromone office to another in search of the missing boxes. There was more fretting instore. He learnt that he had leukaemia and began to worry about what wouldhappen to his prized collection. Arya was his only hope — meticulously,Mamaji captioned and dated each photograph, and stored it along with itsnegative. All these were left with Arya, who, by then, had taken up photographyas a profession. "In 1984, I was on my way on assignment to Kashmir when Mamajiinsisted I pick up the final lot of pictures before I left Delhi," he says. "Ikept telling him I'd come back for them but he was adamant. It was almost likehe had a premonition. By the time I returned, he was gone."Life andwork took over, and Kulwant Roy's images sat quietly in boxes and bags for 23years. Finally, in 2007, Arya reached for a fraying, yellow packet marked'Gandhi's Visit To The North West Frontier Provinces'. After that, he could notstop. "Being a photographer, I knew I had wasted enough time," he says. "I lefteverything else to archive Kulwant Roy's work." His aim is to digitise everyimage and create multiple backups. Roy's images have been displayed inexhibitions both in India and abroad, most recently, at the Whitechapel Galleryin London. Nothing however would have made him happier than to have a bookpublished in his own country, which he so dutifully chronicled.