Raghu Rai, the celebrated Indian photographer who was recruited to Magnum Photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1977, has died at the age of 83. Over five decades, he produced defining images of Indian life, ranging from intimate portraits of Mother Teresa to stark documentation of the Bhopal disaster. His work captured both the grand and the everyday, from crowds at Mumbai's Churchgate railway station to slums in Dharavi, and he published more than 18 books, receiving multiple awards for his unflinching human gaze.
Rai's death marks the loss of one of India's foremost visual chroniclers, whose work bridged photojournalism and fine art. His coverage of the Bhopal disaster for Greenpeace helped raise awareness and pursue justice for victims, while his portraits of social and political elites, as well as ordinary people, offered a deeply empathetic view of the country's complexities. His legacy endures in his vast archive and in the way his photographs continue to communicate deeper levels of human experience.