An exhibition of photographs at Delhi’s Bikaner House made headlines Thursday after the photographer – Raihan R Vadra – was told to remove 70 prints from a collection of 105, most of which documented recent protests in the national capital, including at Jantar Mantar in July.

Flagged as ‘political content’, the prints included two of the national flag being waved at some rallies, images he declined to remove but were then taken down by the organiser themselves.

In an exclusive interview with The Indian Express , Vadra – a visual artist and the son of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – said the ‘takedown request’ was made less than four hours before his show was to open, and by a venue that has hosted at least one of his shows every year since 2021.

Credit: Raihan R Vadra

Vadra argued the prints – their ejection marked by a sea of blank spaces on the gallery walls – did not feature politicians, party flags, or protest slogans, and that public and private art institutions had to respect an artists’…