interview- mark tully

MARK, MARKS AND MARX

His enthusiasm leaves a mark on you. He’s scored a lot of marks in writing, journalism, in shaping modern media. Mark Tully’s frame is 72 years old, but his eyes light up with enthusiasm when you tell him your school was very similar to his. “So did you get good marks in school?” asks Mark, and an affirmative reply brings out an envious childish smile, and he becomes modesty incarnate “Oh I was never really an academic, but I like reading and writing.”
Mark’s new book India’s Unending Journey: Finding Balance in A Time of Change is a candid, lucid account of his own journeys, through time and space, in India. Once you start reading, it’s not easy to put it down. It’s a first person account with a maze of memories, co-incidences and opinions. At one point, Mark describes his coming to India in 1965. He stayed at the Claridges in Delhi, and had been told that it was not as good as its namesake in London. He says that he, however, was happy for that was the first time he lived in a room with an attached bath. He went to the balcony, and could see cooks cooking on cow-dung cakes. The aroma of cow-dung cakes transports him back to Calcutta where he was born, and he says smell is a very powerful vehicle of nostalgia. He knew it then that he was fated to be in India.

Will or Willed?

The clash between free will and destiny forms an important part of the book, and Mark’s own thought-process. When we ask him why is that foreigners come and stay on and fall in love with India, he tells, “I can tell about myself. I was destined to be here. In 1969 French filmmaker Louise Malle made a film on India called L’Inde Fantome, which was an effort to show “real India”. Indira Gandhi thought it was in bad taste and banned BBC. Then I thought my Indian innings were over. But I was back. During emergency, I was expelled. After that I told my bosses that they had to send me back, for I had done nothing wrong. Not sending me would send wrong signals. After that they gave up on me.”

Going back to his school days at Marlborough school, he recalls how everything revolved around good performance in academics and sports. “Everyone’s marks were read out at the end of the term and it could be quite hard on children who did not score well,” he chuckles, “I sometimes felt like a loser, but in some ways it was good. It helped me experiment and find myself.” Mark believes that too much emphasis on free will makes people believe that whatever is happening is because of their own brilliance and nothing else. “On the other hand, the Eastern philosophy lays stress on fate. Too much emphasis makes it fatalism. The balance lies somewhere in between,” he says. He thinks that kids who are very good at school, very often end up being narrow minded individuals because of the feeling of self-importance.

City of Cycles

Mark believes that it’s in a cycle. He has named his pet dog Mishti after the earlier pet he had, called Missy. The new name connects him not just to the old one, but also to Calcutta and its Mishti. And then his memory takes him back to the Delhi of 1960s. “It was a city of bicycles. Over time the city has changed so much, its size, its transport. Public transport has lagged behind, now there is nothing for the pedestrians.”

Of governance

Recounting the 1970s, Mark says that he wouldn’t say that the governance was good, but the government was more able then. When asked if it’s because of the hobnobbing between businessmen and politicians, with businessmen doing really well after 1991, he says, “In a way yes. Businessmen aren’t worried about anything but their immediate interests. There is a need to go beyond this. The Tatas are into a lot of charity work, but how are they behaving in the land acquisition issue?”

Mark in media

Mark enjoyed political reporting, and the most vivid memories of the 1977 election, when the Janata government came to power. “It was sad to see that government fall just a little while later,” he says. Apart from these two, the incidents that have left an indelible mark on Mark’s psyche are the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, “a man made disaster”, the riots, assassinations of Indira and Rajiv, and the demolition of Babri Masjid.

Mark received flak for the way BBC handled the demolition of the mosque, and the mutiny in Sikh regiment after operation Bluestar. “We were criticized for showing the visuals of the demolition. But do they realize that if we had not shown the real pictures, what picture would have been painted by rumour mongers?” He says the same about the Sikh regiment mutiny, “We told the story because someone told us. The story was already out. The bush telegraph works faster than the real telegraph.”

Poly tricks

Mark says he’s been sitting, watching the way India goes forward, “the way the wheels go round.” He recalls 1979 when Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram couldn’t reconcile themselves which led to the rise of Indira again; he recalls George Fernandes who moved Rightwards from being a firebrand Leftist.

“I was in UP during the last elections,” he tells, “Mayawati had been booted out, and a group of Brahmins was jubilant. A guy’s cars had been confiscated by an SC thanedaar earlier, he had got them back with the change of government. I went a little ahead. There was this guy, bandaged all over. He had been beaten up by upper caste men for some silly reason. The man said this wouldn’t have happened under Mayawati. Caste politics is a reality and shying away is not a solution.”

Mark feels that the economy is growing but in a very lopsided manner. “I would have been much happier had socialism worked,” he chuckles staring into the distance.