Who is Francesca Orsini, London University Professor, Denied Entry Into India?

UK-based academic Francesca Orsini was denied entry into India on Monday at Delhi’s IGI Airport, despite holding a valid five-year e-visa, and was told she would be deported immediately.

The Italian scholar, Professor Emerita at SOAS, University of London, arrived via Hong Kong on the night of October 20-21 after attending an academic conference in China.

Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs told PTI that Orsini has been on India’s blacklist since March 2025 for violating visa conditions. “She was on a tourist visa but engaged in activities inconsistent with its terms,” a source said, calling the move a standard global practice.

Her husband, Professor Kornicki of the University of Cambridge, told ThePrint that Orsini was visiting India to meet a Hindi novelist in Bhopal, whose work she had translated, and to clarify details for the English edition but not to attend any academic event.

A renowned scholar of Hindi literature, Orsini holds a BA in Hindi from Venice University and studied at JNU and the Central Institute of Hindi in India before completing her PhD at SOAS. Her major works include East of Delhi, Print and Pleasure, and The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940

The decision drew criticism from Indian intellectuals. Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote on X, “Professor Francesca Orsini is a great scholar of Indian literature. To deport her without reason is the mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid, and even stupid.”