India’s New Intellectual Border Policy
Aditya Sinha | 23 October 2025 | Frontline
India this week proved it prefers charlatans over scholars. One, it denied entry to a scholar of Hindi, Professor Francesca Orsini, ironic given how the regime is forever trying to shove Hindi down the throats of Indians whose mother tongue is different. One public intellectual, historian Ram Guha, called denying Orsini entry “the mark of a government that is insecure, paranoid, and even stupid”.
Orsini is at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), which I attended a long time ago. Besides being a fine institution with a global student body, it is also the gateway to the India Office Library, holder of our colonial files. Orsini is a meticulous scholar, one that India should be glad to host.
Two, India lauds a lawyer from the south whose book sells a lot of copies that no one reads and that rely less on historiography and more on mythology. His initials are JSD, though I am loath to give him even the slightest acknowledgement. His blather about Diwali has been lapped up on social media lately….