JOIN US15 works by K’taka photographer on view at PMs’ museum
Photographs by Sridhara Tumari from Karnataka are on display at the newly-opened museum dedicated to prime ministers of India in New Delhi.
The museum is called Pradhanamantri Sangrahalaya and it opened last month.
Fifteen black and white photographs by Sridhara are part of the showcase. He had clicked these when he was based in Bengaluru in the 1980s.
He currently lives in the Tumari village in Shivamogga and works as a farmer there.
His photographs capture the ‘Bharat Yatra’ that Chandra Shekhar of the Janata Party (JP) had undertaken to eliminate inequalities in 1983. He had walked from Kanyakumari to Delhi. He went on to become the eighth prime minister of India between 1990 and 1991.
In the 1980s, Sridhara says he was the state general secretary for the Yuva Janata Party and was also freelancing as a photographer. So he decided to record the “historic walk”, as he calls it, on his camera. “I covered the Karnataka leg of the yatra,” Sridhara, now 65, told Metrolife.
He joined the JP movement in college days. He also took part in protests against former prime minister Indira Gandhi during the emergency, and was jailed for the same, he shares.
Sridhara says he was elated when he got a call from the prime minister’s office a few months ago.
“It is a pleasure to have my work, which I did about 40 years ago, come back into the limelight. I was also invited to the inauguration alongside a limited audience,” Sridhara shares.
Incidentally, he says, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a statement about Chandra Shekharji’s yatra in 2019 and that inspired me to archive those photographers on a website.”
You can view these photos on chandrashekharphotos.com