"I lived as a child in India…it was Fate that brought
me back."
For
almost thirty years, Mark Tully was the BBC's
man in South Asia. Based in Delhi - he travelled all
over the sub-continent to report on the kind of defining
events that shape a nation's history. For those of us
who were living as expatriates in foreign lands in the
days before cable TV and the CNN brought the world into
our homes, BBC radio's South Asian programme was often
the only source of unbiased information on what was happening
in our own country. Indira Gandhi's assassination was
one such tragic event - followed by the greater tragedy
of carnage when hundreds of innocent Sikhs were killed
brutally - and it was Mark Tully who reported this to
the world through the nights and the days of those troubled
times.
Today, he lives in Delhi as a loved and integral part
of this city. He has seen it through its most formative
and eventful years, coming to India as he did, in 1965,
just a year after Jawarharlal Nehru's death. He
was a familiar figure in the corridors of power and was
close to many of India's leaders including Rajiv Gandhi
and Morarji Desai. These days, although the BBC has
other reporters in South Asia - it is to Mark Tully they
turn for specific insights that emerge out of his deep
and genuine involvement with this part of the world.
In all your years of reportage what were the highs
- when you felt amply rewarded for what you were doing
- and what were the lows?
There have been so many stories that I have covered…these
stories are not my stories. They are the stories of
the people to whom events are happening. After all, I'm
not assassinated, Indira Gandhi is assassinated, I'm not
suffering from floods in Bangladesh, the people of Bangladesh
are suffering. I have an abhorrence of journalists and
journalism which is all about the I, the reporter - and
not telling the story of the people.
If I am asked to talk about the highs and lows: I was
tremendously saddened by the assassination of Rajiv
Gandhi because I knew him well and I very much hoped
that he would have another chance to see if he could do
better this time and because he said to me - he had the
humility to say to me - "I know that I made mistakes
last time but…I'm going to be different this time".
I think it would have been very much in the fitness of
things if he had been allowed the chance.
A moment of horror was the Bhopal gas disaster…and
to know that this was a man-made disaster. A moment of
disgust was the hanging of Bhutto and the realization
that this was a completely rigged trial. I was saddened
by Morarji Desai's death. I knew Morarji and I was fond
of him. I felt very sad at the collapse of the Janata
experiment because we all hoped something quite new was
happening in India…and it didn't. That was a disappointment.
It was a sadness to be at Ayodhya…because it defamed
India. It made me sad because it seemed to me to be contrary
to what was best in the Indian tradition, and I was appalled,
and I said as much to Mr. Advani afterwards, by the obscene,
anti-Muslim slogans that were shouted by them.
You've been in Delhi since 1965. For several years
you were, arguably, an uninvolved observer - as the BBC
commentator for South Asia. And then you suddenly got
involved. Why and when did this happen.
That's a difficult question. I don't think I was ever
wholly uninvolved. I had lived as a child in Calcutta
and I remember when I first came back to India in 1965
- I was staying at Claridges Hotel then - I walked out
onto the balcony of my room and I smelled the winter flowers
and the aroma of the food being cooked by the malis… all
that sort of thing. As you probably know smell is the
most evocative of all the senses and suddenly, my childhood
ran through my head. Like an electric train, it just shot
through it. It was from that moment onwards that I thought
- since I do believe in fate - that it was fate that had
brought me back. So - I was never uninvolved.
When you left the BBC in 1994, you chose to stay on
in India - happily for us. What led to this decision?
Well…I had no desire to go…I wasn't pining to go back
to England. But more strongly, I felt that if you
have spent some thirty odd years of your life in a country
and then just because you have left the BBC you leave
that country, it doesn't say very much about the years
you spent. So for that reason I decided not to go - and
here I am still.
You know India well. What has struck you most forcefully
about this country?
I would first of all say that India is the sort of country
that one learns something new about every day and
there are huge gaps in my knowledge; however, I think
that I can also say that I'm a British person who has
been deeply influenced by this country and I have found
some of the influences deeply powerful in my own life.
I have a number of friends here…I have received a lot
of love from many people in this country - and perhaps
the reason is that they have realized that I genuinely
care…although there may be a lot of things that need to
be addressed…there are also a number of things that are
right about this country.
What involves you these days?
I'm writing a book, which is a sort of follow on of my
earlier book "No Full Stops in India". I'm also
doing what I suppose you can call writing-journalism
- and quite a lot of radio programmes. For
instance, I did three programmes on The Impact of Eastern
Thought on the West for the BBC in London.
I also do a weekly programme that is pre-recorded as well
as a certain amount of public speaking in universities,
literary festivals, that sort of thing, in England. I
suppose I stay busy.
3:30:16 AM 
For
almost thirty years, Mark Tully was the BBC's
man in South Asia. Based in Delhi - he travelled all
over the sub-continent to report on the kind of defining
events that shape a nation's history. For those of us
who were living as expatriates in foreign lands in the
days before cable TV and the CNN brought the world into
our homes, BBC radio's South Asian programme was often
the only source of unbiased information on what was happening
in our own country. Indira Gandhi's assassination was
one such tragic event - followed by the greater tragedy
of carnage when hundreds of innocent Sikhs were killed
brutally - and it was Mark Tully who reported this to
the world through the nights and the days of those troubled
times. 
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