New Class, New Vision: Press Photography and Visual Democracy in Late Colonial Bengal

• In Event: Genealogies of Indian Democracy: Practice, Thought, and Visual Culture (1900-1950)

Abstract

This paper explores the instrumental role of middling bhadralok in the creation of a democratic visual public sphere in late colonial Bengal through the professionalization of press photography. Equipped with halftone printing and cheaper camera technology, newspapers emphasized visual verifiability of facts and, by the early1930s, employed photographers to meet the increased demand for news photographs. Unlike the elite bhadralok, the aspiring middling bhadralok of humble origins responded to this demand. This new group of press photographers thrived on a visual idiom that prioritized events and ordinary people. For the first time the masses were depicted not as bystanders but as active participants in popular politics. This paper will highlight the important role played by little known middling-bhadralok photographers like Birendranath Singha, Tarak Das, and Kanchan Mukherjee in visualizing the historical and the everyday events involving the masses. In making the anonymous masses visible these photographers aided in the democratic imagination of “the people.”

Author

• Ranu Roychoudhuri, Nalanda University