Unnamed GOI officials, on condition of “strict anonymity”, are suggesting Prof Francesca Orsini was blacklisted because she did ‘research’ which visiting India in a tourist visa. Think about this for a second. Orsini is a professor of Hindi, her most celebrated work is on the Hindi public sphere. So what these officials are suggesting is that if she comes to India on a tourist visa, she cannot speak to people in Hindi, cannot meet friends who are Hindi scholars, cannot watch a Hindi play or attend a mushaira or Kavi sammelan as all this would be considered “research”! Indian babudom is anti-intellectual at the best of times but in the hands of the ignorant politicians ruling over us these days the system has crossed all limits of rationality and basic common sense.