Indian govt deports global Hindi scholar Francesca Orsini

Hyderabad: Globally renowned Hindi scholar Francesca Orsini, a professor of emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, on Monday, October 20 was barred from entering India at the Delhi airport despite holding a valid e-visa, The Wire reported.

She received notice that she would be deported immediately. The scholar claimed there was no explanation provided for the denial.

“I can confirm that Prof Francesca Orsini, scholar of Hindi at SOAS, London University, has been stopped from entering India tonight even though she has a valid 5 year e-visa. She arrived from Hong Kong in Delhi and was told she would not be allowed in,” senior journalist and The Wire’s founder editor Siddharth Varadarajan wrote on X.

Orsini said she was planning to visit friends and had travelled to India last in October 2024. “I am being deported. That is all I know,” she said.

An Indian government official claimed that the scholar was deported due to inconsistency regarding her travel and visa category. The official maintained that a pattern of visa violations had been taken into account in addition to her research activities during her past visit on the same visa.

She is reported to be the fourth foreign scholar to be denied entry with a valid visa in recent times. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, under the Modi government, invitations given to foreign scholars for online academic conferences were limited, even those given prior political clearance.

In March 2022, anthropologist Filippo Osella was halted at the Thiruvananthapuram airport and was subsequently deported. British architect Lindsay Bremner in the same year was also deported without any reason. UK based Kashmiri academic Nitasha Kaul in 2024, was blocked from entering at Bengaluru airport. She had arrived for a conference organised by the Karnataka government. 

Orsini also studied in New Delhi at the Central Institute of Hindi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her works include East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary Culture and World Literature, Print and Pleasure: Popular Literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India and The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism.