William Mark Tully, the celebrated BBC journalist who chronicled three eventful decades of Indian history with insight and integrity and sometimes collided with its more authoritarian trajectories, died at a private hospital here on Sunday. He was 90.
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s “Voice of India” was born to British parents in Tollygunge, Calcutta, in 1935. He left with his family soon after the Second World War, only to return to India as a BBC operative in 1965.
It was here that he lived and died, but for a break between 1975 and 1977 when he and other foreign correspondents were expelled during the Emergency.
Tully wrote about this in the Hindustan Times in 2023, and about other instances when the BBC was at loggerheads with the Centre, drawing parallels with the backlash the broadcaster faced after it telecast a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
William Mark Tully
“…Indira Gandhi imposed a stringent Emergency, which included a code for foreign correspondents. Almost all foreign correspondents refused to subscribe and were given 24 hours to leave the country,” he wrote.
“Back in London, Swaraj Paul or Lord Paul as he now is, an Indian Briton close to Gandhi, realised how damaging this would be for her and persuaded her to send the information minister to London to negotiate our return.
“The minister was so aggressive — some said offensive — that the BBC called off the negotiations and sent my wife to Delhi to close our house and office. Not much later, Gandhi declared an election and lifted the ban, so I returned.”
He added: “It is hard to get the BBC to apologise, but in the current case, India needs to realise that the BBC does not spew out colonialist propaganda. It’s a journalists’ organisation, and millions of Indians choose to listen to and watch it.”
The condolences pouring in from across the Indian political spectrum bore witness to this.
Prime Minister Modi posted on X: "Saddened by the passing of Sir Mark Tully, a towering voice of journalism. His connect with India and the people of our nation was reflected in his works. His reporting and insights have left an enduring mark on public discourse. Condolences to his family, friends and many admirers."
In a post on X, Union minister Hardeep Puri said: “For generations across our subcontinent, his calm and unmistakable voice was synonymous with news. As the BBC’s long-time correspondent and bureau chief in India, the Kolkata-born Tully reported on some of the most defining moments in the region’s history…. His reportage during the emergency was incisive, insightful and credible.”
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera wrote: “Many like me grew up listening to his voice, reading his books. I ended up living in the very locality in which he lived for years and fell in love with.”
Tully’s obituary on the BBC website recalled the dangers he sometimes faced.
“In the small north Indian city of Ayodhya in 1992, he faced a moment of real peril. He witnessed a huge crowd of Hindu hardliners tear down an ancient mosque,” it said.
“Some of the mob — suspicious of the BBC — threatened him, chanting ‘Death to Mark Tully’. He was locked in a room for several hours before a local official and a Hindu priest came to his aid.”
Max Super Speciality Hospital, where Tully was admitted, said he passed away at 2.35pm. The cause of death was multi-organ failure following a stroke.
Back in India in 1977, Tully had settled near the Hazrat Nizamuddin shrine in Delhi, first in the upmarket Nizamuddin East and finally with hoi polloi in Nizamuddin West after he retired and could no longer afford the rent. He lived with his partner Gillian Wright and their two Labradors.
Tully was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1985 and received the Padma Shri in 1992. He was knighted in 2002 and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2005. He was a British national and an Overseas Citizen of India.
His BBC obituary says: “He spent more than 20 years as the BBC’s head of bureau in Delhi, leading the reporting not simply of India but of South Asia, including the birth of Bangladesh, periods of military rule in Pakistan, the Tamil Tigers’ rebellion in Sri Lanka and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“Over time, he became increasingly out of step with the BBC’s corporate priorities, and in 1993 he made a much-publicised speech accusing the then director general, John Birt, of running the corporation by ‘fear’. It marked a parting of the ways.
“Sir Mark resigned from the BBC the following year. But he continued to broadcast on BBC airwaves notably as presenter of Radio 4’s Something Understood, turning back to issues of faith and spirituality which had engaged him as a student.”
Tully had studied theology, but stopped short of being ordained as a clergyman.
At a Press Club of India event in 2017 that marked 25 years of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Tully said: “Many said that it was the end of Indian secularism. In my experiences things go up and down in India…. Events of history up until Modi’s election indicated that I had been right…. I still fervently believe that Indian secularism will survive.”