Francesca Orsini, a globally renowned scholar of Hindi and professor emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, on Monday was reportedly stopped from entering India despite possessing a valid five-year e-visa.
According to a national media house, she was informed that she would be deported immediately, with no reason provided for the decision. Orsini, widely recognised for her 2002 book The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism, had arrived in Delhi late on Tuesday via Hong Kong after attending an academic conference in China.
She had planned to visit friends during her trip and had last travelled to India as recently as October 2024, as reported.
The incident has raised significant concerns about academic freedom in India. Historian and social scientist Ramachandra Guha expressed his outrage on X, stating, “Professor Francesca Orsini is a great scholar of Indian literature, whose work has richly illuminated our understanding of our own cultural heritage. To deport her without reason is the mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid, and even stupid.”
Similarly, historian Mukul Kesavan criticised the government’s actions on X, writing, “The visceral hostility of the NDA government to scholars and scholarship is something to behold. A government ideologically committed to Hindi has banned Francesca Orsini. You can’t make this up.”
Speaking to national media from Delhi airport, Orsini confirmed that immigration authorities provided no explanation for her deportation, stating, “I am being deported. That is all I know.” The London-based scholar added that she would need to arrange her own return journey.
Orsini, a literary historian who specialises in Hindi and Urdu materials, has dedicated decades to studying multilingualism within South Asian literary cultures.
This incident marks the fourth known case in recent years of a foreign academic being denied entry to India despite holding valid travel documents. In March 2022, British anthropologist Filippo Osella was deported from Thiruvananthapuram airport without any stated reason.
Later that year, architecture professor Lindsay Bremner also faced entry denial. In 2024, UK-based Kashmiri academic Nitasha Kaul was refused entry at Bengaluru airport, and her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card was subsequently cancelled. Additionally, the government revoked the OCI card of Sweden-based academic Ashok Swain, a vocal critic of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s politics, though he later obtained relief from the Delhi High Court.
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