Symptom of govt’s hostility towards independent scholarship: Cong on deportation of University of London Prof

Days after London-based scholar Francesca Orsini was deported from the IGI Airport over alleged violation of visa conditions, the Congress on Thursday said 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”.

Orsini, a scholar of Hindi and professor emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), was deported Monday, soon after she arrived from Hong Kong, a source in the Ministry of Home Affairs had said. Orsini has been on a ‘Black List’ since March 2025 for violation of visa conditions, they said.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the renowned London-based scholar of South Asian literature has been denied entry into India despite holding a valid five-year visa.

Orsini’s work on Hindi and Urdu literary cultures has enriched our collective understanding of India’s composite cultural heritage - to which the “bhakt brigade” is allergic, he said on X. “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,” Ramesh alleged.

He pointed out that Orsini is the author of many well-known books and academic papers.

“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,” Ramesh said.

Reacting to her deportation, historian Ramachandra Guha had 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 had said on X.

Mukul Kesavan, another historian, had said the “visceral hostility” of the NDA government to scholars and scholarship is something to behold.