The photographs of Margaret Bourke-White, who spent time in India in the closing years of British rule, provide a graphic documentation of some of the more momentous events between the years, 1946 and 1948. She was thus able to capture on camera not only some of the leading figures associated with the transfer of power but also the violence generated during Partition.

One of the telling images in WITNESS TO LIFE AND FREEDOM: MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE IN INDIA & PAKISTAN (Roli, Rs 595) is that of an old Sikh carrying a woman (his wife or daughter) on his shoulders as he walks across the countryside in search of a new home (left). There were millions like him who trekked miles to look for safety and shelter. There were others who did the same journey by train; many of them, on both sides of the artificial border created by the colonial masters, did not live to complete the journey. Trains were objects of attack and Bourke-White’s camera captured corpses lying beside train tracks. Her photographs, horrible as they are, are evidence of the madness that Partition produced.

Bourke-White was also at ease with photographing interiors. We have here one of Vallabhbhai Patel with Maniben obviously discussing something from a book that they have both enjoyed. Facing this photograph in the book is a rare one of Jayaprakash Narayan, his wife, and two socialist leaders, Yusuf Meherally and Rammanohar Lohia. All four look very relaxed and not at all conscious of the camera. If Bourke-White had one favourite Indian subject, it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. And this book has many evocative images. We reproduce here one of Gandhi’s last fast in January 1948 (top right). Bottom centre does not show Gandhi, but is an amusing piece of evidence regarding the popularity that the Mahatma commanded. The photograph shows a young vendor carrying on his head a trunk full of figures in the likeness of Gandhi. Who bought these figures, for how much, and where did they keep them?

On the right of this picture is one of Rajani Palme Dutt, a leading figure of the Communist Party of Great Britain who came out to India to cover the Cabinet Mission for his party’s paper, The Daily Worker. A very patrician-looking Dutt, his pipe on the table before him, is looking intently at what looks like an autograph book. Had the young man asked for an autograph of the sahib?

Witness to Life and Freedom is marred by a howler. There is a photograph with the caption, “Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose relaxing at home.” But it is that of the elder brother, Sarat Bose. It was impossible for Bourke-White to have photographed Subhash Bose since he was away from India since 1941 and was probably dead by 1945.

The howler is compensated for by the foreword by Gopal Krishna Gandhi written in coruscating prose.