Francesca Orsini, a UK-based Hindi scholar and professor emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, was denied entry into India on October 20 and deported from Delhi over alleged visa violations, according to news agency PTI.
Orsini, who arrived from Hong Kong, had been blacklisted since March 2025 for breaching visa rules. She was travelling on a tourist visa, which authorities said she had earlier misused for academic activity, a source in the Ministry of Home Affairs said, as quoted by the news agency.
“Francesca Orsini was on a tourist visa but violating visa conditions. This is standard global practice; anyone found violating visa norms can be blacklisted,” the source added.
She was deported to Hong Kong within hours because her purpose of travel did not match her visa category. Orsini, however, told officials she had a valid five-year visa and was entering India to meet friends.
Orsini, a respected scholar of Hindi literature and author of “The Hindi Public Sphere: 1920–1940”, had attended an academic conference in China before attempting to enter India.
Reacting to her deportation, historian Ramachandra Guha called Orsini 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,” Guha wrote on X.
Mukul Kesavan, another historian, said the “visceral hostility” of the NDA government to scholars and scholarship is something to behold.
“A government ideologically committed to Hindi has banned Francesca Orsini. You can’t make this up,” Kesavan wrote on X.
Orisini had reportedly last visited India in October 2024. The incident drew parallels with the case of British academic Nitasha Kaul, who was deported from Bengaluru earlier this year and later had her OCI card revoked over what authorities described as anti-India activities.
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With inputs from PTI
