Mark Tully: The Journalist Who Obtained Crucial Global Support for Bangladesh’s Liberation War

The death of legendary journalist Mark Tully at nearly ninety is not merely the passing of a respected foreign correspondent. For Bangladesh, it marks the departure of one of the most credible international witnesses to the Liberation War of 1971—a man whose journalism ensured that the war was not reduced to a footnote, a statistic or a diplomatic inconvenience.

In times of war, truth becomes contested territory. In 1971, when Bangladesh was fighting for its very existence, truth was under systematic assault. The occupying Pakistani military sought to crush a people militarily while erasing their suffering politically. Much of the international community hesitated, calculated, or remained willfully silent. It was in this climate that Mark Tully, then the BBC’s South Asia Bureau Chief, chose to see, to listen and to report.

In June 1971, as the Liberation War raged, Mark Tully came to Bangladesh. He did not arrive armed with ideological slogans or pre-packaged narratives. He arrived as a journalist committed to firsthand observation. What he encountered was not a conventional conflict between two equal sides, but a brutal occupation marked by systematic violence, mass displacement, and organized collaboration. Tully travelled through the war-torn landscape, capturing the reality of a country under siege. He visited Mukti Bahini training camps, where young men—students, farmers, workers—were preparing themselves for a war they had not chosen but could not escape. He observed their discipline, their courage, and their profound sense of moral clarity. These were not mercenaries or adventurers; they were citizens turned fighters by necessity. Through Tully’s reporting, the world glimpsed the human dimension of a liberation struggle often misunderstood or misrepresented.

Beyond the camps and the frontlines, Mark Tully went where the consequences of war were most visible: the refugee camps. Millions of Bengalis had fled to escape mass killings, arson, rape, and terror. In those camps, he saw hunger, disease, trauma, and despair on a scale that defied abstraction. His reports did not reduce refugees to numbers. They restored their humanity at a time when the victims of the war were in danger of becoming invisible.

What distinguished Mark Tully’s journalism was not only where he went, but what he was willing to confront. He bore witness to the atrocities committed by the occupying Pakistani forces and their local collaborators—the Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. He saw how these groups operated as enforcers of occupation, terrorizing civilians, identifying targets, and facilitating violence. He documented their role not as marginal actors, but as central instruments of repression.

Most painfully, Tully documented the unspeakable betrayal of Bengali women, who were systematically handed over to Pakistani soldiers by local collaborators. These were not isolated crimes, but part of a systematic campaign of violence aimed at breaking a society from within. At a time when such realities were often euphemized or ignored, his reporting named the crime without embellishment and without evasion.

That is why his reports were chilling—not because they were sensational, but because they were truthful. These reports, broadcast on the BBC, reverberated far beyond South Asia. In an era before social media and real-time digital documentation, radio journalism carried extraordinary power. Mark Tully’s voice became one of the few reliable channels through which the world could understand what was unfolding in Bangladesh. His credibility lay in his restraint, his precision, and his refusal to engage in propaganda—whether official or fashionable.

Inside Bangladesh and among the Mukti Bahini fighters, those BBC broadcasts carried special significance. Freedom fighters waited eagerly to hear his reports, not out of vanity, but out of existential need. In a war where isolation was a weapon, international acknowledgment mattered deeply. Knowing that the world was hearing their story—accurately and honestly—strengthened morale and affirmed that their struggle was neither imaginary nor forgotten.

Mark Tully did not fight with a gun. Yet to imagine that journalism is neutral in such moments is to misunderstand its power. By documenting atrocities, by naming collaborators, by refusing false equivalence, he challenged attempts to rewrite reality even as the war was ongoing. His work ensured that the crimes of 1971 could not be fully buried under diplomatic language or post-war denial.

This is why his legacy matters today. The Liberation War of Bangladesh remains a contested historical terrain, with denial, distortion, and minimization continuing to surface in various forms. The archival record created by journalists like Mark Tully serves as a bulwark against historical erasure. Long after the gunfire stopped, his reports remain evidence. In the contemporary world, where journalism increasingly struggles under pressure from power, money, algorithms, and intimidation, Mark Tully’s example feels almost radical. He demonstrated that objectivity does not mean moral paralysis. That balance does not require equating victim and perpetrator. That professionalism does not demand silence in the face of crimes against humanity.

He belonged to a generation of journalists who believed that being present mattered, that seeing mattered, and that truth carried ethical weight. He understood that the journalist’s responsibility is not merely to report what happened, but to preserve what must not be forgotten. At nearly ninety, Mark Tully has now left the world he once helped understand. But in Bangladesh, his presence endures—in memory, in history, and in moral gratitude. He stands among those rare foreign journalists whose names are spoken not as outsiders, but as witnesses who stood on the right side of history.

Mark Tully’s death invites a larger question that extends far beyond one man or one war: who tells the truth when power demands silence? In 1971, when Bangladesh was bleeding and much of the world hesitated, journalism—at its best—refused to look away. Tully stood in that rare tradition where reporting became an act of moral courage, not performance, not convenience. Today, when history is increasingly rewritten, diluted, or deliberately distorted, his work reminds us that truth does not survive on its own—it survives because someone insists on recording it honestly. Bangladesh remembers Mark Tully not because he was flawless, but because he bore witness when it mattered most. And in an age where forgetting is often easier than confronting the past, that may be the most radical legacy a journalist can leave behind. For his great contribution to Bangladesh’s independence by supporting the Great Liberation War of 1971, Mark Tully was conferred the “Muktijuddho Moitri Sammanona” in 2012. He came to Dhaka for the last time to receive the award. Bangladesh will not forget Mark Tully and his great contribution during the Great Liberation War in 1971.


Emran Emon is an eminent
 journalist, columnist and a
global affairs analyst. He can be
 reached at [email protected]