Globally Renowned Scholar of Hindi Deported from Delhi Airport Despite Valid Visa
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: Francesca Orsini, scholar of Hindi and professor emerita at SOAS, London University, was tonight stopped from entering India even though she has a valid 5 year e-visa and told that she was being deported immediately.
Orsini, author of the highly regarded 2002 book, The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism, and other academic works, arrived in Delhi on the night of October 21 via Hong Kong after attending an academic conference in China.
Though she was planning to visit friends and had last travelled to India as recently as October 2024, the immigration authorities denied her entry. Speaking to The Wire from Delhi airport, Orsini said that no reason was provided. "I am being deported. That is all I know," she said.
A resident of London, she would then have to make her own arrangements to return home from there.
An Indian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that Orsini was deported because her purpose of travel did not match her visa category. When it was pointed out to the official that she was visiting on a tourist visa to meet friends, the official maintained that a prior pattern of visa violations had been observed and that she had reportedly engaged in research activities during an earlier visit on the same visa.
Orsini is perhaps the fourth foreign scholar with a valid visa to be denied entry in recent years.
In 2021, during the Covid pandemic – when there was hardly any global travel – the Modi government attempted to restrict invitations extended to foreign scholars for online academic seminars and conferences to those given prior political clearance.
In March 2022, the Britain-based anthropologist Filippo Osella was stopped at Thiruvananthapuram airport and deported. The same year, British architecture professor Lindsay Bremner was deported, again without any reason being provided.
In 2024, the UK based Kashmiri academic Nitasha Kaul was denied entry at Bengaluru airport where she had arrived for a conference organised by the Karnataka government. Kaul's OCI card was subsequently cancelled as well. The government has also cancelled the OCI card of Ashok Swain, a Sweden based academic and social media critic of the Bharatiya Janata Party's politics. Swain moved the Delhi High Court, where he was able to secure relief.
While the numbers are not high, the randomness and unpredictability of these deportations are likely to have a chilling effect on foreign scholars.
Reacting to the authorities' decision to deport Orsini, historian Ramachandra Guha said it is a “mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid and even stupid”.
“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,” he said on X.
Apoorvanand, who is professor of Hindi at Delhi University, said that Orsini's deportation is “shocking” and a “direct attack on scholarship”.
“Shocking that Francesca Orsini, a friend and renowned scholar of Hindi has been stopped from entering India despite valid papers. Her visits to India have been entirely for scholarly purposes. This is a direct attack on scholarship,” he said.
Historian and novelist Mukul Kesavan said the action pointed to the Modi government's “visceral hostility” to “scholars and scholarship”.
He wrote on X: “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.”
Permanent Black, which published Orsini's book Print and Pleasure: Popular Literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India in 2009, wrote on Tuesday morning that her “scholarship has greatly enriched Hindi literary studies and history of the book in India”.
The deportation of Orsini comes days after a new global report noted that India has become a key example of how academic freedom is shrinking, with universities and political groups limiting free expression on campuses.
Many universities now require prior approval for protests, discussions, or slogans, while police have cracked down on student demonstrations. Violence has also risen: At Sri Venkateswara University, Professor Chengaiah, a Dalit rights advocate, was beaten by Hindu nationalist groups who accused him of promoting Christianity. At Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), officials canceled seminars with Middle Eastern diplomats and dismissed the seminar coordinator. In Udaipur, members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh disrupted a film festival, forcing its cancellation. These incidents highlight the growing political pressure and intolerance faced by Indian universities.
This article was updated at 1:31 pm and at 6:26 pm on October 21 with more information.
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