Sir Mark Tully: India. The Road Ahead
The BBC’s former man in India talks about the country’s future. And the places you must visit
Nobody knows India like Sir Mark Tully. As former Chief of Bureau for the BBC in India, Sir Mark can call upon a lifetime of knowledge to comment on the country’s vibrant history and incredible potential. His latest book, India: The Road Ahead, examines the country as it emerges as one of the world’s future superpowers.
As you’ll discover below, he also has tips on the hidden corners of India you must visit to gain an insight into this diverse and intriguing country.
You were born in India. You’ve spent much of your professional life there and it’s your home now. What is it that draws you to India?
Various reasons but it’s all to do with the belief in Karma – a belief in somehow things telling you what to do rather than you always trying to make your own life.
When I first went back to India, 20 years after I had grown up there as a child, I suddenly felt at home. The whole of my childhood rushed through my head and I thought India must be something special for me. As events in my life turned out it became more and more obvious to me that it should be the place where I was living.
Of course, there were other, simpler reasons as well. I got a great deal of enjoyment out of living there, I’m very interested in it, I’ve got a lot of friends there. And I got a lot of recognition there as well. But there was also this sense that it was somewhere that mattered to me.
What is the biggest difference between the India of No Full Stops and the India of The Road Ahead?
The biggest difference is that India is much more confident now than it was when I wrote No Full Stops. Then it was a country that didn’t have much obvious success to its credit. Its economy was growing, but it wasn’t growing very fast. It was also a country where people lacked aspiration.
Now it’s a country with great, perhaps too much, confidence and also a country with a larger and more aspirational middle class. And when you go out into the rural areas you find people are much more aspirational too and much less prepared to put up with the sort of government and services that are shabby and inadequate. Also, they won’t put up with the idea that they are fated to remain where they were born.
