The man behind Assam’s most fearless frames, Nalini Kanta Baruah, no more

Tezpur, Jan 7: Assam is mourning the death of internationally acclaimed photographer and Bishnu Prasad Rabha Award laureate Nalini Kanta Baruah, who died at his Barahalia residence in Tezpur on Tuesday evening. He was 95.

Baruah’s demise has cast a pall of gloom across cultural, media and artistic circles in the state, bringing to a close an extraordinary creative journey that spanned nearly eight decades.

His last rites were performed with full state honours at Harjarapar crematorium, attended by admirers, fellow artists, journalists, and representatives of the district administration.

Earlier in the day, a public tribute programme was held at Church Field in Tezpur, where admirers gathered to bid farewell to the master behind the lens.

Born on April 22, 1931, Nalini Kanta Baruah was far more than a photographer. Revered as a “shutter guru”, he approached photography as a confluence of visual art, emotion, and social commentary.

At a time when photography was largely seen as documentation, Baruah elevated it into a powerful artistic language that is bold, introspective, and often provocative.

He is widely regarded as one of the earliest photographers in India, and possibly the first from the Northeast, to experiment with nude photography in a public and artistic context.

Nalini Kanta Baruah (AT Image)

His work in this genre broke taboos and challenged rigid moral frameworks, introducing a subtle yet fearless aesthetic that earned national and international attention. One of his nude photographs famously found space in mainstream newspapers, a radical moment for Indian visual culture of its time.

Baruah’s lens also bore witness to history.

He documented the Indo-Chinese war era, capturing rare images of soldiers and army life marked by grit, vulnerability, and quiet courage. His body of work extended to politically charged portraits and social realities that reflected the turbulence and transitions of their times.

Deeply rooted in Assam’s cultural landscape, Baruah shared close associations with iconic personalities such as Bishnu Prasad Rabha, Bhupen Hazarika, and eminent litterateur Homen Borgohain.

These relationships found expression in some of his most evocative portraits, capturing not just faces but the spirit of Assam’s intellectual and cultural renaissance.

His vast repertoire includes celebrated works such as The symbol, Majestic, Fly and Fly, No Word, The Companion, Trust, Culture, Naked Touch, Death and Birth, Universal, Spring Culture, Worry, Missing Bihu Dance, Bihu Dance, Happiness an Assamese Girl, Life together, Struggle, My life, The chain, Mother’s love, Want, Togetherness, and Play time. 

Condolences poured in from across the state, with the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Photographic Society of Assam, Sonitpur Press Club, Sonitpur Journalists’ Union, Tezpur Sahitya Sabha, district units of AASU and ABSU, Bodo Sahitya Sabha, and several cultural and social organisations expressing profound grief at his passing.