Tharoor Urges ‘Thicker Skin, Broader Mind’ After Hindi Scholar’s Deportation
Congress MP backs Swapan Dasgupta, says deporting foreign academics over minor visa issues hurts India’s image
- Francesca Orsini, noted Hindi scholar, deported from Delhi for alleged visa violation
- Tharoor says such actions damage India’s global academic credibility
- Former BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta also urged that the State must not assess scholarship
- Orsini was blacklisted earlier this year for violating visa norms
GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 2nd Nov: A week after noted Hindi scholar Francesca Orsini was deported from Delhi for allegedly violating visa conditions, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has criticised the move, saying that “official India needs to grow a thicker skin, a broader mind and a bigger heart.”
Tharoor’s remarks came in response to a column by former BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta, who wrote that while the State must ensure compliance with visa rules, it has no business evaluating a professor’s scholarship. “India must guard against any impression it has closed its doors on foreign scholars,” Dasgupta said.
Sharing the post on X, Tharoor said he agreed with Dasgupta’s view. “Rolling out an ‘unwelcome mat’ at our airport immigration counters to deport foreign scholars and academics because of trivial visa violations is doing us far more damage — as a country, a culture and an internationally-credible nation — than any number of negative articles in foreign academic journals could ever accomplish,” he said.
Francesca Orsini, Professor Emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was deported from Delhi airport on October 21 after arriving from Hong Kong. Officials said she was travelling on a tourist visa and had been blacklisted in March for previously violating visa conditions.
“This is a standard global practice — if a person is found violating visa conditions, he or she can be blacklisted,” a government source told PTI.
According to India’s visa regulations, foreign nationals are required to adhere strictly to the declared purpose of their visit. Orsini, an Italian national who earlier taught at Cambridge before joining SOAS, is renowned for her work on Hindi literature and her acclaimed book The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism.
Her deportation has triggered widespread criticism from historians and intellectuals, who argue that such actions could deter global scholars from engaging with India’s academic and cultural institutions.
