Sir Mark Tully | |
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.jpg) Tully in 2011 | |
| Born | William Mark Tully (1935-10-24)24 October 1935 Tollygunge, Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 25 January 2026(2026-01-25) (aged 90) New Delhi, India |
| Education | Marlborough College Trinity Hall, Cambridge |
| Occupations |
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| Children | 4 |
| Signature | |
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Sir William Mark Tully (24 October 1935 – 25 January 2026) was a British journalist and the bureau chief of theBBC inNew Delhi, a position he held for 20 years.[1] He worked with the BBC for 30 years before resigning in July 1994.[2] He also wrote and published several books.
Tully was born inTollygunge,Calcutta,Bengal Presidency,British India, on 24 October 1935.[3][4][5] His father was a British businessman who was a partner in one of the leading managing agencies of theBritish Raj. His mother had been born in Bengal. Tully spent the first decade of his childhood in India, although without being allowed to socialise with Indian people. His British nanny once scolded him for learning to count in Hindi from his driver, saying "that's the servant's language, not yours".[6] At the age of four, he was sent to a "British boarding school" inDarjeeling,[7][8] before going to England for further schooling from the age of nine. There he was educated atTwyford School (Hampshire),Marlborough College and atTrinity Hall, Cambridge, where he studiedTheology.[7]
After Cambridge, Tully intended to become a priest in theChurch of England but abandoned this after two terms atLincoln Theological College, admitting later that he had doubts about "trusting [his] sexuality to behave as a Christian priest".[5]
Tully joined theBBC in 1964 and moved back to India in 1965 to work as the corporation's India correspondent.[5][9][10] He covered all the major incidents in South Asia during his tenure, ranging fromIndo-Pakistan conflicts,Bhopal gas tragedy,Operation Blue Star (and the subsequentassassination of Indira Gandhi,anti-Sikh riots), theassassination of Rajiv Gandhi to thedemolition of Babri Masjid.[11][12][13] He was expelled from India shortly afterIndira Gandhi declared astate of emergency and began ruling by decree in 1975; he returned a year and a half later shortly before the restoration of normalcy in the country.[6]
In 1992, when covering thedemolition of the Babri Masjid byHindutva activists, some of the perpetrators confronted him, chanting "Death to Mark Tully", reflecting their distrust of the BBC. Tully was locked in a room until a local official and a Hindu priest helped him leave several hours later; he later said that the demolition was India's "greatest setback" to secularism as an independent nation.[6] He resigned from the BBC in July 1994 after an argument withJohn Birt, the then director general. He accused Birt of "running the corporation by fear" and "turning the BBC into a secretive monolith with poor ratings and a demoralised staff".[2]
In 1994 he presented an episode of BBC'sGreat Railway Journeys, "Karachi to The Khyber Pass", travelling by train across Pakistan. A well-known railway enthusiast,[14] he also presented "Steam's Indian Summer",[15] a documentary produced byNick Lera in hisWorld Steam Classics series. As Tully reports in the journal HIMAL,[16] the two men could not be sure where steam trains were still operating and they travelled around India together locating and filming them.
From 1994, he worked as a freelance journalist and broadcaster based inNew Delhi.[9][11]
He was the regular presenter of the weeklyBBC Radio 4 programmeSomething Understood[17] until the BBC announced its end in 2019.[18]
As a guest of theBangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue, on 7 October 2010 he spoke on "How certain should we be? The problem of religious pluralism." He described his experiences and the fact that India had historically been home to all the world's major religions. He said that had taught him that there are many ways to God.[19][20]
Tully was patron of the British branch ofChild in Need India (CINI UK).[21]
Equally well versed in English andHindi, he contributed his efforts to keep literature alive and was the key speaker among 50 speakers of secondKalinga Literary Festival on 17 May 2015, where he explored the role of literature in nation building.[22]
Tully's first book on India,Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's Last Battle (1985),[23] was co-authored with his colleague at BBC Delhi, Satish Jacob; the book dealt with the events leading up toOperation Blue Star, Indian military action carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 to remove militant religious leaderJarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the buildings of theHarmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex inAmritsar, Punjab.[14]
Tully'sNo Full Stops in India (1988),[24] a collection of journalistic essays, was published in the US asThe Defeat of a Congress-man.The Independent wrote that "Tully's profound knowledge and sympathy ... unravels a few of the more bewildering and enchanting mysteries of the subcontinent."[25]
In 2002 cameIndia in Slow Motion,[26] written in collaboration with Gillian Wright and published by Viking. Reviewing the book inThe Observer, Michael Holland wrote of Tully that "Few foreigners manage to get under the skin of the world's biggest democracy the way he does, and fewer still can write about it with the clarity and insight he brings to all his work."[27]
The anonymously authoredHindutva Sex and Adventure was a novel featuring a main character with strong similarities to Tully. Tully himself stated that "I am amazed that Roli Books should publish such thinly disguisedplagiarism, and allow the author to hide in a cavalier manner behind anom-de-plume. The book is clearly modelled on my career, even down to the name of the main character. That character's journalism is abysmal, and his views on Hindutva and Hinduism do not in any way reflect mine. I would disagree with them profoundly."[28]
His last book,Upcountry Tales: Once Upon A Time In The Heart Of India (2017),[29] was a collection of short stories set in rural north India.[30][31]
In 1960 Tully married Margaret, with whom he had four children during the 1960s. However, after 1981, he lived inNizamuddin West[32] inDelhi with his girlfriend, Gillian Wright.[33][34] Tully held anOverseas Citizenship of India card.[35]
Tully died on 25 January 2026 at the age of 90, at a hospital inNew Delhi.[36][6][37]
He was a member of theOriental Club in London.[38]
Tully was made an Officer of theOrder of the British Empire in 1985 and was awarded thePadma Shri in 1992.[7] He wasknighted in theNew Year Honours 2002,[39] receiving aKBE, and in 2005 he received thePadma Bhushan.[40]
