Hyderabad: Globally renowned Hindi scholar Francesca Orsini, Professor Emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was barred from entering India at Delhi airport on Monday, October 20, despite holding a valid five-year e-visa, The Wire reported. She received notice that she would be deported immediately, with 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 had planned to visit friends in India and last travelled to the country in October 2024. “I am being deported. That is all I know,” she said.
An Indian government official stated that Orsini was deported due to inconsistencies regarding her travel and visa category. The official added that a pattern of visa violations, along with her research activities during her past visit on the same visa, was taken into account.
Orsini is reported to be the fourth foreign scholar recently denied entry into India despite holding a valid visa. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the Modi government had limited invitations to foreign scholars for online academic conferences, even those with prior political clearance.
In March 2022, anthropologist Filippo Osella was stopped at Thiruvananthapuram airport and subsequently deported. British architect Lindsay Bremner was also deported in the same year without explanation. In 2024, UK-based Kashmiri academic Nitasha Kaul was blocked from entering India at Bengaluru airport while arriving for a conference organised by the Karnataka government.
Orsini has also studied in New Delhi at the Central Institute of Hindi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her notable 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.