Jeevenundhan (Jeeva) Rajgopaul was born in November 1952, in Dundee, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). He grew up in Clairwood, Durban. In 1961 his family was uprooted from Clairwood and they were forced to go live in Chatsworth, Durban — an area designated for Indians under the notorious Group Areas Act. He attended the local primary school and then attended Chatsworth High School.
He qualified as a Physical Science teacher at Springfield College of Education, Durban. He taught Science in schools in KZN, Cape Town and Gauteng. At present he is working as a freelance documentary photographer.He worked on a documentary project on Chatsworth, the largest Indian township in South Africa. Rajgopaul was also a member of Afrapix. He contributed to the Staffrider exhibitions of 1983, 1984, and 1985 and to the book exhibition Nicht Wird Uns Trennen (Nothing Will Separate Us) in 1983.
He was the first South African to receive the Eli Weinberg Scholarship for Documentary Photography at the University of Cape-Town (UCT) in conjunction with Duke University, North Carolina, USA, which enabled him to study photography at the International Centre for Photography in New York, USA. His works have appeared in a number of books, magazines and newspapers. He has given photographic workshops in many centres in South Africa.
His works have appeared in a number of books, magazines and newspapers. He has given photographic workshops in many centres throughout South Africa and has lectured in photojournalism at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). In 1993 he was approached by David Goldblatt to teach photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg.
Works featured in the following exhibitions/publications:
Staffrider Presents: South Africa Through the Lens - Social Documentary Photography, 1983
Staffrider Annual Exhibition. Market Photo Gallery, Johannesburg, 1984
Staffrider Annual Exhibition. Market Photo Gallery, Johannesburg, 1985
Staffrider Vol. 5 No. 2, 1982 (Front Cover by Jeeva)
Staffrider Vol. 9 No. 4, 1991
Culture and Resistance Conference exhibition, 1982
Nicht Wird Uns Trennen (Nothing Will Separate Us), book exhibition by, Dieter Koeve and Tim Besser, Benteli Verlag, Bern, 1983
South Africa: The Cordoned Heart, 1986
Speak Collective No. 16 Aug - Oct, 1987
Beyond the Barricades: Popular Resistance in South Africa in the 1980s, 1989
With Our Own Hands, 2001