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New Delhi: “Indians need to grow a thicker skin,” said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, days after a London-based scholar was deported from India for allegedly violating visa conditions. The Thiruvananthapuram MP added on Sunday that trivial visa violations could damage India’s international reputation far more than negative articles in foreign academic journals ever could.
Tharoor’s remarks came after BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta shared an article arguing that while it is the duty of the state to ensure compliance with visa conditions, it has no business assessing the scholarship of a professor. Responding sharply to the recent deportation of Hindi scholar Francesca Orsini on October 21, Tharoor said that India “needs to grow a thicker skin, a broader mind, and a bigger heart.”
The controversy erupted when Francesca Orsini, a Professor Emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, was deported from Delhi Airport on October 21. She was denied entry into India for allegedly violating visa conditions after arriving from Hong Kong.
According to officials, she had been blacklisted in March for violating visa conditions. They added that it is standard practice to blacklist a person who breaches visa policy. Government rules state that foreign nationals are required to strictly adhere to the purpose of visit declared in their visa application.
Reacting to the deportation, historian Ramachandra Guha shared a post on X, saying, “To deport her without reason is the mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid, and even stupid.” He described Orsini as a great scholar of Indian literature “whose work has richly illuminated our understanding of our own cultural heritage.”
Originally from Italy, Orsini previously taught at the University of Cambridge before moving to the University of London. She has worked extensively as a Hindi scholar and is best known for her book The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. Her deportation has drawn sharp criticism from historians and intellectuals alike.
