Incredible India in the 1950's (RARE)

In 1950, the Constitution of India came into force. These rare monochrome photographs capture the essence of India, a newly fledged Republic.

Two men taking their morning wash at a public pump on the streets of Calcutta, India. 

As a priest reads from the scriptures food, symbolising wealth and fecundity, is placed in the hands of a bride.

Women labourers in the coalmining industry in India. A large number of them are employed in the industry but they work above ground

An Asian gives a friend a haircut, carefully shaving his scalp

A beggar sits in the middle of the street in Banares, India. 

Boats travelling the backwaters near Cochin, in the state of Kerala.

Crowds of pilgrims on the waterfront at Allabahd, India during Kumbha Melha, a month long Hindu bathing festival. 

Operators at work in the New Delhi Telephone Exchange.

Men bringing in man-drawn rickshaws to be added to the large number of them stacked up in front of the Deputy Commioner of Traffic's office at Madras after a ban forbidding their use. They are to be replaced by cycle rickshaws, a combination of rickshaw and bicycle

Emaciated beggars in the streets of Muttra, in India, where a famine is ravaging the population.

Sikh women worshippers, they are segregated from the men.

After a morning's bathe, a man grooms his water soaked hair.

Men bathe in the Hooghly River, Calcutta under the shadow of the Howrah bridge. 

Men having an early morning wash in Calcutta's busy Hooghly river, with its large freighters in the background.

A boatman propels his boat with a single oar along the Jumna river, in the background rises the Taj Mahal.

A young Indian girl and some friends. The Family Planning clinics being set up in India should bring a happier childhood and adult life to children like her.

Masseurs giving a chest massage to bathers after their morning dip.

A farmer and his oxcart trudge past the girders of the Howrah bridge over the Hooghly river in Calcutta.

In the forefront a water buffalo stands beside a tilled field, in the background the rear of the Taj Mahal and a small mosque also in the grounds.

A man buying fruit from a street stall in front of an advertising hoarding promoting several films in New Delhi, India

A man casting a net with weights tied to its edges into an irrigation ditch in India to catch small fish.

A steam locomotive on the narrow gauge mountain railway which runs between Darjeeling and Calcutta, India.