In an hourlong Tete-a-Tea session organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata, Sir William Mark Tully - the voice and face of BBC in South Asia for three decades – reminisced about his childhood in Calcutta where he was born. He shared his views on making curries, his love for the radio and the railways. Sir Tully also touched upon a range of topics germane to the current state of affairs in India. Conversationalist, Lady Mohini Kent Noon, connected from London to engage Mark Tully to respond to some of the pressing issues pertaining to journalism, media trials, policing in India, colonial legacies and the plight of women.
Mark Tully explained, “The owners and proprietors of TV channels are obsessed with getting the maximum viewers and so they stick by the rule – news is the views of the day. I believe very strongly in radio. Even now, I often turn to radio rather than television if I want to be entertained,” he said.
1935-born Sir Mark Tully, the recipient of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan, had covered some of the momentous historical events of the century in the subcontinent as a journalist over a career spanning three decades (1964 to 94). As a BBC correspondent, he had covered the Indo-Pak conflicts, Shimla Summit, Bhopal gas tragedy, imposition of Emergency, Operation Blue Star, assassination of Indira Gandhi, anti-Sikh riots, assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the demolition of Babari masjid and many other big happenings. He was the bureau chief of BBC in New Delhi for 20 years.
Commenting on existing colonial legacies in India, Mark Tully said, “There are still a lot of colonial legacies in Indian life. It is most striking in the police force which is appalling. There are two types of police force – the governing and the serving. The governing police force’s top priority is to maintain law and order and the serving police force’s job is to serve the public. India under the colonial rule had a governing police force which supported the government whether it was right or wrong, legal or illegal. What India needs is a serving police force.”
He further said, “Only recently there was a terrible picture of a police refusing to allow the family of a girl, who had been brutally raped to die, to cremate her in day time. The police even stopped the family from attending the cremation fearing there would be some riots. We saw the way the police were talking to the family and it was a terrible sight, it was an absolute governing police force. Well everyone is afraid of the police in India, no one wants to call the police to help them, which is evident.”
Mark Tully was sent to a British boarding school in Darjeeling. “I was actually born in a little pond of white because our whole life was white. We had no Indian friends. I did not have the privilege of learning Hindi as a child,” Tully said.
Referring to the railways and steam engines he said, “I was always fascinated by the concept of this enormous amount of steel, a huge thing and the huge distances that it was going to cover. I love the steam engines and I can boast that I am the Vice-President of Indian Steam Railways Society. The steam engines are the nearest things to a human being in machines. I think they are like a human, very temperamental, they are very difficult to drive well, you have to worry about so many different things in them. But, a steam engine in full speed is a magnificent sight,” he said.
On being asked what he still wants to achieve in his illustrious life, Mark Tully, the author of nine books, said, “I would like to write a book and improve my Hindi.”
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