| Sir Mark Tully | |
|---|---|
| Born | William Mark Tully 1935 Calcutta, India |
| Education | Marlborough College Trinity Hall, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Journalist, Writer |
| Title | Sir |
| Religious belief(s) | Anglican Christian |
Sir William "Mark" Tully, OBE (b. 1935 in Calcutta, India[1]) is the former Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi. He worked for BBC for a period of 30 years before resigning in July 1994.[2] He held the position of Chief of Bureau, BBC, Delhi for 20 years.[3] Since 1994 he has been working as a freelance journalist and broadcaster based in New Delhi.[4][5] He is currently the regular presenter of the weekly BBC Radio 4 programme Something Understood.[6]
Contents |
Mark Tully was born on 24th October 1935 in Calcutta; his father was a British businessman who was a partner in one of the leading managing agencies of the British Raj. He spent the first decade of his childhood in India, although without being allowed to socialise with Indian people,[7][8] before going to England for schooling. He was educated at Twyford School, Marlborough College and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he studied Theology.[7] After Cambridge, he intended becoming a priest in the Church of England but abandoned the vocation after just two terms at Lincoln Theological College, admitting later that he had doubts about "trusting [his] sexuality to behave as a Christian priest".[1]
Mark Tully joined the BBC in 1964 and moved to India in 1965 to work as the India Correspondent.[1][4][9] He covered all major incidents in South Asia during his tenure, ranging from Indo-Pakistan conflicts, Bhopal gas tragedy, Operation Blue Star (and the subsequent assassination of Indira Gandhi, anti-Sikh riots), Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi to the Demolition of Babri Masjid.[5][10][11]
Tully resigned from BBC in July 1994, after an argument with John 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] Tully is equally well versed in English and Hindi.
He is patron of the British branch of Child In Need India (CINI UK).[12]
Tully was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1985 and was awarded the Padma Shree in 1992.[7] He was knighted in the New Year Honours 2002,[13] receiving a KBE, and in 2005 he received the Padma Bhushan.[14]
Tully's first book on India Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's Last Battle (1985) was co-authored with his colleague in BBC Delhi, Satish Jacob; the book dealt with the events leading up to Operation Blue Star, the Indian army's attack on Sikh extremists in the Golden Temple at Amritsar.
His next book Raj to Rajiv: 40 Years of Indian Independence was co-authored with Zareer Masani, and was based on a BBC radio series of the same name. In the US, this book was published under the title India: Forty Years of Independence.
Tully's No Full Stops in India (1988), a collection of journalistic essays, was published in the US as The 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."[15]
Tully's only work of fiction, The Heart of India, was published in 1995.
In 2002 came India in Slow Motion co-authored with Gillian Wright. Reviewing the book in The 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."[16]
Tully later wrote India's Unending Journey (2008) and India: The Road Ahead (2011), published in India under the title Non-Stop India.
In the area of religion, Tully has authored An Investigation into The Lives of Jesus (1996) to accompany the BBC series of the same name and Mother (1992) on Mother Teresa.
The anonymously authored Hindutva Sex and Adventure is a novel featuring a main character with strong similarities to Tully. Tully himself has stated that "I am amazed that Roli Books should publish such thinly disguised plagiarism, and allow the author to hide in a cavalier manner behind a nom-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".[17]
I thought "Divide and Quit" was written by Penderel Moon. 1961 - Chatto & Windus.