India was where this Englishman was born – in what was then Calcutta (now Kolkata). And India was where he died on Sunday. His father was a businessman. His mother had been born in Bengal – her family had worked in India as traders and administrators for generations.
Mark Tully, who spent a lifetime listening to India and persuading the world to do the same, leaves behind a body of work that helped shape how modern India was reported, interpreted and understood. Tully was knighted in 2002 and received the Padma Bhushan from the government of India in 2005.
For generations of Indians, his calm, thoughtful voice on the BBC was not that of a foreign correspondent passing judgement, but of a trusted chronicler trying — patiently and honestly — to make sense of a complex civilisation.
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Tully’s career highlights
Tully served as the BBC’s chief correspondent in India for more than three decades, a period that encompassed some of the country’s most turbulent moments: the Emergency, the rise of insurgency in Punjab, the churn of coalition politics, the trauma of communal violence, and the early stirrings of economic liberalisation.
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Through it all, his reporting stood apart for its restraint and depth. He avoided the dramatic flourish and moral absolutism that often characterised foreign coverage of India, preferring instead to foreground voices that were usually unheard.
Unlike many Western journalists who viewed India through the prisms of exoticism or perpetual crisis, Tully approached it as a living society grappling with change on its own terms. He was sceptical of easy narratives and deeply uncomfortable with the idea that India needed to resemble the West to succeed.
That scepticism became one of his defining intellectual traits. Tully questioned Western certainties about secularism, development and modernity, often arguing that Indian society could not be neatly explained through imported ideological frameworks.
He believed faith, tradition and community were not relics to be discarded, but forces that continued to shape political and social life.
Tully’s reporting on Punjab
Nowhere was this clearer than in his reporting on Punjab during the years of militancy. His book Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi’s Last Battle, written with Satish Jacob, remains one of the most detailed and empathetic accounts of that violent chapter.
Tully refused to reduce the crisis to simplistic explanations, insisting instead on examining political misjudgements, historical grievances and human costs.
His later books, including No Full Stops in India and India’s Unending Journey, cemented his reputation as a reflective interpreter of the country rather than a conventional reporter.
In these works, Tully argued that India’s progress would be uneven, often frustrating, but ultimately shaped by its own social rhythms. He warned against impatience — especially the impatience of elites — and urged a deeper engagement with rural India, where he believed the country’s moral and political core resided.
Despite his affection for India, Tully was no uncritical admirer. He wrote and spoke with growing concern about governance failures, corruption and the erosion of institutional integrity. His disappointment, however, was never detached. It came from a sense of belonging. India was not merely a professional assignment; it was his home, the place that had shaped his worldview and given his career its meaning.
In an era of rapid, headline-driven journalism, Tully represented an older, increasingly rare tradition. With his passing, India loses more than a foreign correspondent. It loses a listener, a bridge between cultures, and a reminder that journalism, at its best, is an act of attention and respect. Tully did not speak for India. He listened to it — and in doing so, helped it hear itself more clearly. |
