Sardar Patel at work and other glimpses of the Indian freedom struggle
Almost a forgotten name, Kulwant Roy (1914-1984) used his camera to capture scenes from the freedom movement.
As India's struggle for independence entered its final phase, a photographer named Kulwant Roy was on hand to chronicle the efforts of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Sardar Patel.
Specialising in aerial photography while serving in the Royal Indian Air Force, Roy went on to set up a studio in Delhi, before heading an agency called Associated Press Photographs. In the mid-1940s, Roy followed Mahatma Gandhi to Utmanzai, a town in the North West Frontier Provinces, to photograph the Mahatma’s meeting with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He also took many photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru. Before his death, Roy passed on negatives and photographs from his works to his nephew Aditya Arya, and they now form part of the Aditya Arya Archive.
After years of digitising and restoring Roy’s works, they are now on display in Mumbai at an exhibition titled Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy. “There is a lot of political history lying buried in these photos,” said Arya who is also a photographer. “The exhibition is a retrospective of his work, that reflects traces of his life story and visual journey.”
The exhibition also contains images that were painstakingly restored and digitised, from Roy’s personal collection during his time in the Air Force. Together with Indivar Kametkar, Arya also published a book titled History in the Making; The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy.
Here are some of the photographs you can expect to see in the exhibition.
The exhibition is being held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, until September 7, 2014.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Specialising in aerial photography while serving in the Royal Indian Air Force, Roy went on to set up a studio in Delhi, before heading an agency called Associated Press Photographs. In the mid-1940s, Roy followed Mahatma Gandhi to Utmanzai, a town in the North West Frontier Provinces, to photograph the Mahatma’s meeting with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He also took many photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru. Before his death, Roy passed on negatives and photographs from his works to his nephew Aditya Arya, and they now form part of the Aditya Arya Archive.
After years of digitising and restoring Roy’s works, they are now on display in Mumbai at an exhibition titled Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy. “There is a lot of political history lying buried in these photos,” said Arya who is also a photographer. “The exhibition is a retrospective of his work, that reflects traces of his life story and visual journey.”
The exhibition also contains images that were painstakingly restored and digitised, from Roy’s personal collection during his time in the Air Force. Together with Indivar Kametkar, Arya also published a book titled History in the Making; The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy.
Here are some of the photographs you can expect to see in the exhibition.
Nehru with his grandson Rajiv and daughter Indira before taking a trip.
Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan at a prayer meeting (broken negative).
The maharaja of Kapurthala (left) and Sardar Patel.
Kulwant Roy in Japan 1961.
The exhibition is being held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, until September 7, 2014.