Francesca Orsini, a globally renowned scholar of Hindi and professor emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was on Monday reportedly stopped from entering India despite holding a valid five-year e-visa.
She was told she would be deported immediately and no reason was provided, The Wire reported.
Orsini, best known for her 2002 book The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism, arrived in Delhi late on October 21 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, The Wire report said.
The development comes amid widespread concerns about academic freedom in India.
“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,” historian and social scientist Ramachandra Guha wrote on X.
Speaking to The Wire from Delhi airport, Orsini said immigration authorities did not explain the decision. “I am being deported. That is all I know,” she told the news website.
The scholar, who lives in London, said she would have to make her own arrangements to return home.
A literary historian who works primarily with Hindi and Urdu materials, Orsini has spent decades exploring multilingualism within South Asian literary cultures.
Hers is the fourth known case of a foreign academic in recent years to be denied entry into India despite valid travel documents.
In March 2022, British anthropologist Filippo Osella was deported from Thiruvananthapuram airport without explanation.
The same year, architecture professor Lindsay Bremner was also denied entry.
In 2024, UK-based Kashmiri academic Nitasha Kaul was refused entry at Bengaluru airport, and her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card was later cancelled.
The government has also revoked the OCI card of Sweden-based academic Ashok Swain, a critic of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s politics. However, he later secured relief from the Delhi High Court.