The violent Partition of India sparked waves of immigration to England — and brought us a master photographer
Masterji humanized Coventry’s growing community of South Asians, and always put them at ease
In 1947, after the partition of India, the first wave of migrants scrimped and saved to book passage to England, only to find that their education and skills didn’t throw open the doors to opportunity. Locked out from decent jobs and alienated from the dominant culture, they lived in rundown inner-city housing, a closed-off society of their own.
As part of this wave, Maganbhai Patel left India a teacher and found himself working a factory job in the industrial hub of Coventry. But one shred of his past life would not be left behind — an interest in photography. Patel bought a Kodak Brownie camera and began taking classes after shifts and on weekends.
Drawn by the photographer’s easy social demeanor and obvious talent behind the lens, friends — and friends of friends — began calling on Patel to shoot weddings and other special occasions. When photographic work began to interfere with his factory shifts, Patel made a decision as life-altering as the choice to leave his homeland. He adopted the name Masterji — an Indian term for teacher — and went pro. For decades, he was the de facto documentarian of Coventry’s South Asian community.
The archive of his work — only a few hundred negatives, produced between the 1950s and 1990s, survive from the thousands of pictures he made — are an unguarded portrayal of everyday people who were seen as others and outsiders. As a fellow immigrant, Masterji was a familiar and comfortable presence during portrait sessions held at the studio he eventually opened in the front of his family home, a place where people could relax in front of his camera.
At the time, England expected little more than menial labor and good manners from Indian immigrants. By casually inviting people to express themselves as themselves, Masterji afforded his subjects the agency to inhabit their own sense of self and belonging. His lens wasn’t just a look into a hidden world of people marginalized by a difference in culture, it was a spotlight on their place in England, and their right to be as British as their native-born neighbors.
Times have changed and the South Asian community is now integrated into English culture. Today, the studio is run by his son, but photography isn’t done with Masterji just yet. In 2016, the 94-year-old former teacher curated his first exhibition, helped by his daughter and backed by the city of Coventry. The show traveled to Mumbai and New York and has been followed up by the release of his first monograph.
At Timeline, we reveal the forces that shaped America’s past and present. Photography is at the heart of this mission. Our photo team and the Timeline community are scouring archives for the most visually arresting and socially important images, and using them to explain how we got to now. To help us tell more stories, and to surface more amazing photography, please consider becoming a Timeline member.
