A pioneering Indian photojournalist photographing for much of the twentieth century, Kulwant Roy was behind some of the most iconic images of the Indian freedom movement and the post-Independence decades. Although he fell into obscurity towards the end of his life, posthumous recognition of his work grew after a large number of his photographs and negatives resurfaced in 2008 and were subsequently archived by his legal heir, photographer and collector Aditya Arya.

Roy was born in Bagli Kalan, Ludhiana, Punjab. He was introduced to photography by Raj Gopal, Arya’s great-granduncle, who ran the Gopal Chitter Kuteer Studio, Lahore. He began work as a photojournalist in the 1930s, trailing leaders of the Indian National Congress (INC) as they moved around the country for protests, marches, speeches and other activities aimed at garnering support for the freedom struggle. It is during this period that he did some of his most notable work, photographing prominent personalities such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He used a Speed Graphic camera, which allowed him to immediately process individual exposures as opposed to full rolls and shoot at high shutter speeds to clearly capture even the briefest of moments.

An image of Jinnah and Gandhi having a private argument is a part of the Hulton-Getty archives (better known through its online presence, Getty Images) but is not formally attributed to Roy, despite Arya having recovered the original negative in 2008. Photographs from this period often went unattributed as photojournalism was still in its nascent stage and photographers had not yet begun to seriously safeguard against future appropriation of their work. By the late 1940s, Roy had become more cautious in this regard, often stamping his name on the photographs he took.

In 1941, he joined the Royal Indian Air Force, and was stationed in Quetta (now in Pakistan) to photograph the North-West Frontier Province from the air. Two years later, however, he was ousted from the Air Force for protesting its discriminatory rules against its Indian members. He then returned to Lahore and set up a photojournalism agency, Associated Press Photos. He soon shifted the agency office to Mori Gate, New Delhi, where others in the profession were based. He hired assistants at the studio and for his shoots, considerably speeding up the process of capturing, developing and printing photographs. He continued to document the freedom movement alongside his studio work, photographing key moments like the transfer of power from Lord Mountbatten to Nehru, and Nehru’s famous speech on the eve of Independence. He also established a rapport with several INC leaders, as there were few photojournalists at the time and the Congress was keen on presenting a positive image of the movement through his work.