'Need To Grow Thicker Skin': Shashi Tharoor On Deportation Of Italian Scholar Francesca Orsini

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has suggested that the Indian government grow a 'thicker skin', days after the deportation of an Italian Hindi scholar, Francesca Orsini, from Delhi for violating visa conditions.

Tharoor reacted to a column written by former BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta, who argued against the State's deportation action, saying, "India must guard against any impression it has closed its doors on foreign scholars".

Sharing Dasgupta's post on X, Tharoor wrote, "For Once I agree with Swapan Dasgupta." Tharoor argued that India's current visa enforcement approach could damage its international reputation more than any critical academic article ever could.

He went on to say, "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".

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"Official India needs to grow a thicker skin, a broader mind & a bigger heart," Tharoor added.

Orsini was deported from Delhi airport on October 21 for allegedly violating visa conditions. A professor emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, Orsini had come to India from Hong Kong but was denied entry.

Her deportation didn't go well with historians and acedemics with Ramachandra Guha condemning and describing it as indicative of a government lacking confidence.

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Speaking about her deportation, the officials said that she was on a tourist visa and was blacklisted in March for violating visa conditions.

Orsini had earlier taught at Cambridge before moving to the University of London. As a Hindi scholar, she has worked broadly and is well known for her book, 'The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism'.