The Caravan — February 2018

80 THE CARAVAN

out of focus · books

Raghubir Singh recalls this episode
in the introduction to his fourth photo-
book Rajasthan, India’s Enchanted Land
(1981). He offers the following by way of
conclusion:

In Rajasthan, there are thousands of

villages like Galawas, and hundreds

of others which are worse off. My

aim in writing about the villages is

not simply to show its wretchedness.

I find it futile to add to the volumes

written on the poor in India. But

it is important to point out that in

spite of their poverty, the peasants of

Rajasthan have spun out a wealth of

folk culture. Their exuberance, their

vitality, their ability to laugh, to sing

and dance, interwoven into the rich

fabric of their culture, makes them

stand out ... Even the clothes they

wear, those bright and vivid fabrics,

are a symbol of their colorful spirits.

This passage veers away from one
kind of local colour, only to embrace
another. The argument can be tracked
in two movements. Singh first distances
himself from a strand of concerned

realism—the sort you might associate

with the journalist P Sainath—because

adding to it would be reductive and

futile. His reasoning, one presumes

(he does not articulate it), is that such

writing reduces people to their abjec-

tion. Singh prefers that we celebrate

their “vitality.” Peasants, he argues,

“stand out” because of the “rich fabric

of their culture” (and also because of

their fabrics). This sounds nice enough

until you reverse the equation. Would

they not stand out if they did not sing

and dance? And would Singh have lost

interest if their clothes were plainer?

His early photographs suggest as

much. Consider the peasants in Curi-

ous Villagers Outside a Circus, Pushkar

(1976), who have their backs turned to

us as they peep into a circus tent. This

image has a social valence. Singh has

registered their exclusion. More subtly,

he conveys the imbalance of gender:

the women crouch on their haunches,

predictably beside the children, while

the men and boys stand. But the overall

structure emphasises something else.

The picture frame is neatly divided

along the middle: the top half is covered

previous spread: Subhas
Chandra Bose Statue, Calcutta,
West Bengal, 1986

top: Employees, Morvi Palace,
Gujarat, 1982

right: Slum Dweller, Dharavi,
Bombay, Maharashtra, 1990

succession raghubir singh

succession raghubir singh