Sir Mark Tully, the BBC’s ‘voice of India’, dies aged 90

Broadcaster and journalist Sir Mark Tully, known for many years as the BBC’s “voice of India”, has died at the age of 90.

For decades, a highly acclaimed foreign correspondent and respected correspondent and commentator on India, Sir Mark’s rich, warm tone was familiar to BBC audiences in Britain and around the world. He described war, famine, riots and assassinations, the Bhopal gas tragedy and the Indian army’s attack on the Sikh Golden Temple.

In 1992, he faced real danger in the small city of Ayodhya in northern India. He witnessed a large mob of Hindu conservatives destroying an ancient mosque. Suspicious of the BBC, some in the crowd threatened him, chanting “Death to Mark Tully”. He was locked in a room for several hours until a local official and a Hindu priest came to his aid.

The destruction led to the worst religious violence seen in India in decades; years later he said this was the “most serious setback” to secularism since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947.

“We are sorry to hear of the passing of Sir Mark Tully,” Jonathan Munro, Interim CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, said in a statement. “A pioneer of foreign correspondents, Sir Mark opened India to the world through his reporting, bringing the country’s vibrancy and diversity to audiences in the UK and around the world.

“His public service commitments and commitment to journalism saw him work as a bureau chief in Delhi and report across broadcast outlets at the BBC. He was widely respected in both India and the UK, it was a pleasure to speak to him and he will be greatly missed.”

India was Sir Mark’s birthplace; In 1935 it was then Calcutta (now Kolkata). He was a child of the British Raj. His father was a businessman. His mother was born in Bengal; His family had worked as merchants and administrators in India for generations.

He was brought up by an English nanny who once scolded him for learning to count by copying the family driver: “That’s the servants’ language, not yours,” he was told. He eventually started speaking Hindi fluently; It was a rare feat in Delhi’s foreign press corps and endeared him to many Indians, whom he always referred to as “Tully sahib”. His good cheer and obvious love for India earned him the friendship and trust of many of the country’s senior politicians, editors and social activists.

He maintained a balance throughout his life: English, without a doubt; but not an immigrant persistently passing through India. They had roots there; This was his house. He spent three quarters of his life here.

Just after the Second World War, at the age of nine, Sir Mark came to England for education. He studied history and theology at Cambridge and then went to seminary with the aim of being ordained as a clergyman before he and the church had second thoughts.

In 1965 he was sent to India for the BBC. At first he served as an executive assistant, but over time he began working as a reporter. His publishing style was distinctive, but his strong character and insight into India stood out.

Some critics said he was too tolerant of India’s poverty and caste-based inequality; others admired his openly expressed commitment to the religious tolerance on which independent India was based. “It’s really important to value the secular culture of this country, to allow every religion to flourish,” he told an Indian newspaper in 2016. “…we should not jeopardize this by insisting on Hindu majoritarianism”.

Sir Mark was never an armchair reporter. Whenever he had the opportunity, he traveled around India and neighboring countries by train. It expressed the hopes and fears, trials and tribulations of ordinary Indians as well as the country’s elite. Wearing an Indian kurta was as comfortable as wearing a shirt and tie.

In 1975, he was deported from India with 24 hours’ notice after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a state of emergency. However, he returned 18 months later and had been living in Delhi ever since. He served as head of the BBC’s bureau in Delhi for more than 20 years, overseeing reporting not only on India but also on South Asia, including the emergence of Bangladesh, periods of military rule in Pakistan, the Tamil Tiger insurgency in Sri Lanka and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Over time, he began to fall out of line with the BBC’s corporate priorities, and in 1993 he made a widely publicized speech accusing then-director John Birt of running the company “through fear”. It was a sign of parting ways. Sir Mark resigned from the BBC the following year. However, he continued to broadcast on BBC broadcasts, particularly as presenter of Something Understood on Radio 4, and returned to the issues of faith and spirituality that had preoccupied him as a student.

Unusually for a foreign national, Sir Mark was awarded India’s two highest civilian awards: the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan. Britain also recognized him. He was knighted in the 2002 New Year’s honors list for his services to broadcasting and journalism. He described the award as “an honor for India”.

He continued to write books about India, sometimes with partner Gillian Wright; He also wrote essays, analyses, and short stories. He lived modestly in South Delhi.

Sir Mark never renounced his British citizenship but was also proud to become an Overseas Citizen of India late in life. This, he said, made him “a citizen of the two countries to which I feel I belong, India and Britain.”