Francesca Orsini, a Hindi scholar and professor at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), was stopped from entering India on Monday night despite holding a valid five-year e-visa, according to reports.
Orsini had reportedly arrived in Delhi from Hong Kong after attending an academic conference in China. However, immigration authorities did not allow her entry into India.
She has claimed that she was not given any explanation for her deportation. Reports of Orsini’s deportation have sparked widespread condemnation on social media.
Responding to a news report about the incident, TMC MP Sagarika Ghose criticised the Modi government, writing on X, “Shocking and sad. Francesca Orsini is a world-renowned scholar of South Asian literature and Hindi who has been deported despite her valid visa. The narrow-minded and backward-looking Narendra Modi regime is destroying the open-minded scholarship and excellence India has always stood for.”
Professor Mario I Aguilar, Director of CSRP, expressed solidarity with Prof Francesca Orsini and posted,
"Our solidarity with Prof. Francesca Orsini, linguist and scholar of Hindi at SOAS, who tonight has been denied entry into Delhi at Indira Gandhi International Airport. She had a valid visa and has been a frequent visitor to India. All of us who visit and research India request the freedom to undertake our research trips and writings about the country."
Who Is Francesca Orsini?
Orsini earned her undergraduate degree in Hindi from Venice University in Italy and pursued further studies in New Delhi at both the Central Institute of Hindi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. She later obtained her doctorate from SOAS, University of London.
Her published 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.
She currently serves as Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS.
