Lee Langley

A romantic looks back

The unending journey of this book takes Mark Tully from slums to skyscrapers as he explores the past, present and future not only of the subcontinent but of society, both eastern and western; how democracy is facing up to fundamentalism — Hindu, Muslim and an atheism he scathingly labels ‘aggressive secularism’. The Dawkins camp would not be welcome in his compound.

There was a time when Tully was the most famous Englishman in India — ‘What does Tully Sahib say?’ the man on the village charpoy would ask when political or economic upheaval loomed. Tully’s mellifluous voice filled the airwaves for the 22 years he ran the BBC’s New Delhi bureau, trusted and loved by his millions of listeners.

He embraced India; the warmth, humour and stoicism of its people, and the frustrations of its seemingly insoluble problems to the point where, two decades on, BBC suits (and some listeners) felt the brilliant reporter who brought alive the misery of street beggars, the horrors of the Bhopal chemical disaster and the India-Pakistan border conflict, had grown partisan. The book reminds us how private tensions between BBC head office and Delhi correspondent finally went public with his spectacular challenge to the new Director-General John Birt’s market-driven policies. Tully later resigned, though he continues to make programmes for the BBC, notably his weekly Radio 4 ‘spiritual slot’ Something Understood. Knighted in 2002, he has written several books about India. Now he is looking inwards, attempting to describe how 40 years of living in India have changed him.

Tully was born in Calcutta and spent his childhood in India. Sharing both those experiences, I recognise many of his early memories: the joyous Hindu festivals, the smell of cowdung and marigolds, the steam trains and the chaotic splendour of this struggling, stubborn democracy.

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