Sir Mark Tully speaks to DW about the changes that he has witnessed in this diverse, salad bowl of our country

Could he have forgotten this one too? As I start looking worried standing outside his threshold, a neighbour (I am assuming she was a neighbour) asks me to wait in her office instead. She says that he could only be gone for a walk with his two Labradors. In reality, it was Gillian Wright, Sir Tully’s partner for three and more decades, who had taken the dogs out for a walk. Soon, after persistent doorbell ringing, I found Sir Tully standing in front of me smiling in a pastel pink shirt and formal trousers. “I put on a shirt for you,” he let’s me know, indicating that he took an effort for the camera. When I apologise for waking him up from his afternoon siesta, he says that it is one “Indian habit” that he hasn’t, despite trying with full intention, quite picked up. How hard could sleeping be? “I often think of relaxing. Sometimes I even try, but I can’t. Perhaps it (restlessness) is because we don’t have the air conditioning roaring all the time. Instead I work. I rarely start work before 10am. So, it’s convenient that I don’t sleep,” he says, as he ushers me in. But before we start the interview, it’s a quick tour of the cosy flat. (“You mean small, don’t you?” he asks with a chuckle.) Especially the study, which is charming. Is it where the magic happens? He laughs ebulliently. “It is far from magic. Though I have confessed to be totally unworthy on a number of occasions, authors ask me to write the forward to their books. Currently, I have two that I need to finish. That’s all the magic for now.” No, that’s not all—in an hour’s time, Sir Tully will be escorted by a news reporter of a popular TV channel to meet its managing director. Something to do with the impending General Elections and talk shows. He will then head back to start on the two books. The next day, he will be lecturing on the role of the Indian Army during the First World War. And, this is only his second day since arriving from London, which he visits thrice a year for the BBC. “This is not like the other programmes I have conducted for the BBC. This is not news. I do what is loosely described as a contemplative session. I suppose it means like a spiritual or religious programme on doctrinaire. I always had an interest in religion, I’ve always been a believer, even when I was in school,” he says as a way of explaining. Incidentally, Sir Tully went to Malborough boarding school, the same attended by the future Queen of England (Kate Middleton for those who aren’t really rabid Royalists). During his time “there were no girls there”. “I didn’t like it (the school) much. The one place I liked was the chapel. I loved the liturgy and hymns. I think that started my interest in religion,” he says. When the moment came to choose, allegedly Sir Tully was told that his place was more “in the public place than the pulpit”. “I realised I was too unruly to be a priest. But I have held no bitterness over the decision,” he says. We were to talk of religion a bit more. But before that, business.India; Then and Now Business of being in India, that is. This being the month when we get to celebrate our freedom, it seemed like an opportune moment to reflect. For the time being, put aside the fact that Sir Tully’s a foreigner. That too of a British origin. Admittedly, it is an ironical choice. However, who better than this prolific writer who has lived and breathed India for so long? “I came here in 1965. In the time that I have been here, the middle class has become a much larger and more important entity. I think throughout India people have become more aspirational than before. There is something of a tendency—not enough of a tendency yet—to look at the bigger picture. When I first came people voted along caste lines or on similar grounds of belief. I remember, early on, Jashwant Singh told me that an MP was nothing more than a facilitator. Therefore, you voted for people who no more than facilitated for you. Now because people are more aspirational, they are not just thinking of their own reality, they are also looking at the bigger picture. In the past General Elections, I spent time in Bihar and there, I found a genuine interest towards other issues—roads and infrastructure. I remember speaking to a doctor at a health centre. He showed me a register where the number of patients being treated had gone up. People were coming into health centres to seek treatment which was a change from the earlier days. That sort of change could be only brought about when people think on broader terms.” But then, isn’t our land still the kingdom of jugaad? And aren’t people happy with the status quo? “I am not sure that people are happy with the system, they seem to regard it more like an inevitability. Certainly, I do I think one of the best manifestations of this system is in the way the government functions—it functions but not in the way that people want it to,” he says. And as far as he is concerned, all that may, or may not, change in the next General Elections. One reason why Sir Tully is not ready to buy the idea of the election being a personal match where Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi—is because it is not the great game as far as he is concerned. “As we say, a week is a short time in politics. It is far too early to predict the General Elections. An idea seems to be prevalent that the Congress is on a down fall. However, it is far too early to predict the inevitability of such a downfall. “I still think that the idea of the elections being a match between Modi and Gandhi is a misconceived one. On the whole, the GE is about progress and state results. I don’t think that the General Elections are national in the sense that politics or results in the states determine largely the result. One person cannot capture the nation’s fancy in a nation as diverse as this. If you look at Congress’ record, the last time there was a personality who captured the nation’s fancy was Rajiv Gandhi after his mother died. I don’t see a Narendra Modi or a Rajiv Gandhi being able to sweep the polls because of their charisma. “I was recently in Purvanchal (Eastern UP and Bihar) and I was talking to local politicians there. One of them said that politics in his part of the world, was still about caste. When I talked to him about Modi, he sort of dismissed him.” It is after the monologue that Sir Tully takes a moment to mull things over. “One of the biggest changes I got to see was the decline of the Congress as a party since the days of Indira Gandhi. Since 1984, the party had to face major challenges. It had to govern as a minority or as a member of a coalition even when it was in power. Another change I have witnessed has been the rise in regional and castebased parties. A lot of people put the onus of their emergence on the Mandal Commission. There are positives and negatives around caste baste parties; if you look at Dalits, it is actually an open question to see if it is in their interest to have a caste-based party or it is in their interest to seek welfare by voting for parties that care for them. The Congress, which claimed to be looking out for the Dalit interest, were rejected by the group. There was a small representation of Dalits in the Congress leadership even when they were claiming to be the group’s guardians. As long as people stand together on a basis of caste, it is but natural—at least understandable— that people will vote for parties that represent them. When these ‘situations’ and ‘interests’ are taken care of, groups will become more mobile, and the caste issue, its significance, will diminish. Look at India’s most populous state. There a Dalit woman was the chief minister for a full term. That would have been unimaginable back in the 1960s.” Incidentally, when we started planning our story, we made a promise—to not question why, as a foreigner, Sir Tully choses to stay in this country. Because the answer is evident. He finds this country mindboggling interesting. “The brilliance of India is that there is unity and disparity which is quite its own. Wherever you may be, there is one sort of civil service, one system of administration—in the Northeast or down south. There is always a district collector, an administrator, and in the states, the administration is similar whether you are in Hyderabad or Patna. There is also a commonality of issues, of education (what he means that if a citizen manages to pass a medical entrance examination in Patna then he or she can practice anywhere).” However, does the ‘commonality’ and ‘centrality’ end right there? “I have always argued there is a basic, underlining cultural unity brought together by a basic understanding among the majority that they are all different. The difference means that they may not share things together—however there is an acceptance that people are different. Ashish Nandy famously said that India was a salad bowl culture— and not a soup culture. In a salad, a tomato remains a tomato, and doesn’t get squashed up by an onion. The book I am reading right now is the family history of a south Indian household, going back quite a few generations. In it also, I find instances of different religions co-existing but not necessarily assimilating. Being different is important for Indians, and it is the defining quality of the Indian culture,” he says. It is this idea which has made him a bit wary of ‘secularism’ at least the type advocated across countries right now. “Secularism, its effects, depends upon how you define it. Jawaharlal Nehru, who is considered to be the father of Indian secularism, made it clear that the concept doesn’t mean diminishing the importance of religion. Or that you are hostile towards religion. Unfortunately people—Indian secularists—mistake it to be so. We have so many people in England, in Europe, who think that if you are religious you should shut yourself in a room and not tell anyone that you are religious. Not let it play any role in the public life. Secularism has to accommodate religion in India, and indeed across the world, if it has to work.” India; Future “It is absolutely clear that there are major administrative changes or reforms which need to be made if India has to take the next step forward. One has to have a higher form of governance. An American economist (possibly Lant Prichatt, the faculty researcher and professor of the practice of international development, Harvard Kennedy School) once said that India is not a failing state, but a flailing one. I find it a rather appropriate saying especially if you look at the government flailing around trying to get foreign investment. Each time the country takes a step forward, politics mixed in bureaucracy comes in its way. The fundamental problem is with the legal system. I mean look at the papers today, take a look at the Salman Khan case. Isn’t it 10 years old now? How can you have a legal system that is so slow? “Also the press and television are equally to blame for the situation. The press seeks a new ghotala everyday. When was the last time you read of the Commonwealth Games? I read the papers once I arrived, and I still don’t have the slightest clue about the match fixing scandal. If the press has to play an effective role, it will have to not only reveal ghotalas but periodically chase stories of significance if they have not been solved. You would probably find that everyone’s on bail and nothing much has changed.” It is interesting incidentally that his “another absolute essential” was to reform the police. “The police in this country are still behaving similar to the way they did during the British Raj. During the Calcutta Famine, people were allegedly afraid to pick up bodies from the streets. Because they were afraid of a police case, afraid of the police, afraid of what might they do, the mess they might get into—it is the same even today. I was sitting in England with Gillian’s mother, and there was a story being flashed of some policemen who beat a lorry driver to death, after he refused to pay a bribe. If I am not mistaken the incident happened in Bengal. What sort of a country do we live in?” India; No Full-stops Yes, for Sir Tully it is ‘our’ country. As much his, as it is yours and mine. This ‘relationship’ (written of as frequently as any other affair) gives him enough fodder to carry on writing. The next item on his to-do list is a return to Heart of India, a series of short stories, this time, preferably in and around Purvanchal, a region that has found a special place in his heart. “I do wish to write about Purvanchal. I am rather fond of it. I do go there, not as often as I would like to. I also go to Auroville twice a year, that is because I am a member of the international board there. I have no intention of living there though I applaud the attempt. I believe we lead too materialistic a life. And men and women’s natures are not properly recognised. I admire the way Auroville dwellers live as a community without the trappings of bureaucracy and politics, of which—let’s face it–people are getting more and more tired, globally. I have not seen a time when politicians have been less respected, as they are now.” If he is so fond of Auroville will he ever consider taking up residence there? It seems that for Sir Tully being fond of doesn’t essentially mean being entrenched in it. Like religion—it is a leitmotif of his life. Similarly, he might admire Auroville, but with a twinkle he says that “he prefers to be a bit more out and about in the world”. A second later he points to an iftaar invitation he received during our interview and says, “I will miss out a lot in case I leave.” Despite obvious affinity, does it not bother him when his admiration for the country is questioned—constantly? “I suppose it is a natural question. I find the frequency of the question a bit peculiar. A Frenchman living in England probably won’t be asked the question as many times as I’ve been asked. This is a far more interesting country!” Our time is up. An young television intern is already waiting impatiently for Sir Tully outside the home, hoping to get him to his next interview on time. I point out that I have seen people younger—decades younger—than him take a beating from jet lag, he says it is all ‘a part of the routine’. He has been doing this for decades now. Always busy as a bee. When I say so, he mutters, “Yes, I am busy. But I don’t seem to be doing anything.” That, Sir Tully is quite an erronous assumption! But we can talk about that some other day.