The deportation of London-based scholar Francesca Orsini has drawn sharp criticism from Congress, which described the government’s move as a clear sign of hostility toward independent scholarship.
“The decision to bar her from the country is not a matter of immigration formality but a symptom of the Modi government's hostility towards independent, serious-thinking, professional scholarship,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said.
Orsini, professor emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was sent back from IGI Airport on Monday, shortly after arriving from Hong Kong.
According to sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs, she had been on a ‘Black List’ since March 2025 for alleged violation of visa conditions, reported PTI. “This is a standard global practice that if a person is found violating visa conditions, he/she can be black listed,” the source said.
Ramesh stressed that the scholar held a valid five-year visa.
Her work on Hindi and Urdu literary cultures, he noted, has “enriched our collective understanding of India's composite cultural heritage—to which the 'bhakt brigade' is allergic.”
He also highlighted her contributions: “Her classic 'The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism' was first published in 2002 and its Hindi edition came out in 2010.”
Not everyone agreed with the accolades.
Author Amish Tripathi commented on X, “I have no views on this scholar Francesca Orsini. Had never heard of her. But those of us from a rooted background, who speak Hindi at home, read Hindi books as well, can only roll our eyes at this rather bizarre claim that 'few have shaped our understanding' of Hindi literary culture like a British SOAS Prof!” while replying to a tweet.
The story of her deportation was first reported by The Wire. Its editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, cited unnamed government sources justifying the move, but he criticised the rationale.
"Think about this for a second. Orsini is a professor of Hindi, her most celebrated work is on the Hindi public sphere. So what these officials are suggesting is that if she comes to India on a tourist visa, she cannot speak to people in Hindi, cannot meet friends who are Hindi scholars, cannot watch a Hindi play or attend a mushaira or Kavi sammelan as all this would be considered 'research'!" Varadarajan wrote.
Orsini, an Italian scholar, specialises in South Asian literature, particularly Hindi and Urdu. She completed her BA in Hindi from Venice University, studied further at the Central Institute of Hindi and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and later earned her PhD at SOAS, where she focused on the Hindi literary public sphere of the 1920s and 1930s.
She taught at Cambridge University before joining SOAS in 2006 and retired as Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature.
The deportation has also drawn criticism from historians.
Earlier, Ramachandra Guha called Orsini a scholar “whose work has richly illuminated our understanding of our own cultural heritage” and said, “To deport her without reason is the mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid, and even stupid.”
Mukul Kesavan added that the episode reflects the “visceral hostility” of the NDA government toward scholars and scholarship.
