The Light Has Gone Out-Photography and Gandhi's Assassination

Sahmat is mounting an exhibition of photographs of the day and aftermath of Gandhiji’s assassination in Delhi on January 30th 1948, at Jawahar Bhavan in New Delhi. The exhibit opens on October 2nd, 2023 at 5PM. The history is important in the annals of photojournalism and the coverage of a momentous moment in India’s history. Margaret Bourke-White was probably the most famous photographer in the world at that time working with Fortune and Life magazine. The last long interviews with Gandhi were with her. Henri Cartier-Bresson had just set up the Magnum photo collective in Paris and got introductions to the Nehru family through his Indonesian dancer wife Ratna Mohini, and through them, to Gandhi. He was just beginning his career. Max Desfor was the AP photographer who was in India after photographing the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. Both Bourke-White and Desfor had earlier made images which are imbedded in every Indian’s memory – Bourke-White’s of Gandhi at his Charkha, and Desfor’s of Nehru and Gandhi sitting laughing on the gadda.

The photo historian Claude Cookman had published a remarkably researched essay on the events surrounding these three photographers and how their differing practices and approaches impacted on their photography of those few days. This exhibit is based on that research and fills in the moment with contemporary eyewitness reports from Nayantara Sahgal, Margaret Bourke-White and Cartier-Bresson. The February 16, 1948 issue of Life magazine carried photos by both Bourke-White and Cartier-Bresson. It was Bresson’s first big reportage and led to his later fame. The exhibit shows the circumstances of the incidents which led to this and how the back-stories of the photographers impacted their reportage and our visual memory of that event.

Bourke-White used large format press cameras, tripods and bulb flashes even in daylight. Younger Cartier-Bresson was using the hand-held 35mm Leica with fast lenses and shot in natural light. Bourke-White was evicted from Birla house because of her flash. Bresson got the photos she missed and more of his appeared in Life magazine, though she was their official photographer. Then the famous cremation photo by Cartier-Bresson was actually shot by Max Desfor on Cartier-Bresson’s camera !!
Many lesser-known photos will be on display – including a rare set from original Magnum press prints of the Cartier- Bresson take which are being loaned from the collection of the DAG – The Delhi Art Gallery. Newspaper reports complete the contemporary narrative.

The exhibit is curated by Ram Rahman and Saarthak Singh.