Censorship – Academia

Francesca Orsini, scholar of Hindi and professor emerita at SOAS, London University, was tonight stopped from entering India even though she has a valid 5 year e-visa and told that she was being deported immediately.

Orsini, author of the highly regarded 2002 book, The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism, and other academic works, arrived in Delhi on the night of October 21 via Hong Kong after attending an academic conference in China.

Though she was planning to visit friends and had last travelled to India as recently as October 2024, the immigration authorities denied her entry. Speaking to The Wire from Delhi airport, Orsini said that no reason was provided. “I am being deported. That is all I know,” she said.

A resident of London, she would then have to make her own arrangements to return home from there.

An Indian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that Orsini was deported because her purpose of travel did not match her visa category. When it was pointed out to the official that she was visiting on a tourist visa to meet friends, the official maintained that a prior pattern of visa violations had been observed and that she had reportedly engaged in research activities during an earlier visit on the same visa.