Who is UK professor Francesca Orsini and why was she deported at Delhi airport?
People familiar with the matter said Francesca Orsini was on a tourist visa and had violated its conditions.
A UK-based professor was denied entry into India upon arrival from Hong Kong on Tuesday night. Francesca Orsini, a professor associated with the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, was reportedly deported at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, over alleged visa violations.
While Orsini reportedly told a web portal that she was denied entry into India despite holding a valid visa, people familiar with the matter said she was on a tourist visa and had violated its conditions.
“She had been placed on a blacklist since March 2025 for violation of visa conditions. This is a standard global practice that if a person is found violating visa conditions he/she can be black-listed," a person told HT.
Who is Francesca Orsini?
Orsini is a noted historian, a leading scholar of Hindi and Urdu literature. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Venice, and a PhD from London, as per the SOAS website. She is currently employed as Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics there.
Orsini is popularly known for her book 'The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism' and reportedly last visited India back in October 2024.
She studied Hindi at Venice University, followed by Central Institute of Hindi in New Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University before joining SOAS, University of London.
How the literary world reacted to her deportation
Several noted literary figures condemned Francesca Orsini's deportation at the Delhi airport, and called out the “visceral hostility” of the government.
Historian Ramachandra Guha termed 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.
Meanwhile, independent publishing house Permanent Black, which has published Orsini’s work, said in a post: “Francesca Orsini’s scholarship has greatly enriched Hindi literary studies and the history of the book in India. She is a renowned scholar, published worldwide in English and in Hindi. She has just been denied entry into India, with no reason given.”
Notably, it is not yet clear why Francesca Orsini was visiting India.
(With PTI inputs)
