Anthropologist Filippo Osella deported from Kerala; no reasons cited

Hyderabad: A renowned anthropologist and sociologist from the United Kingdom, Filippo Osella, was denied entry into the country soon after landing in the Thiruvananthapuram Airport and was deported back to his country on Thursday. The move, for which no reasons were cited, has already triggered a controversy with some terming it a tactic of the […]

Hyderabad: A renowned anthropologist and sociologist from the United Kingdom, Filippo Osella, was denied entry into the country soon after landing in the Thiruvananthapuram Airport and was deported back to his country on Thursday.

The move, for which no reasons were cited, has already triggered a controversy with some terming it a tactic of the Union government to ‘silence the voice of western researchers on India’.

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This tactic is being used by Hindu right-wing regime to silence the voice of western researchers on India! Many have succumbed to it for years already. https://t.co/UImrrDYBJe

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) March 24, 2022

According to various media reports, Osella, 65, a Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Sussex, was a specialist in Kerala society and had conducted extensive research for over 30 years in the State, mapping its social and cultural transformation.

He was to attend a conference in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday on Kerala’s coastal communities that was being organised by the Cochin University of Science and Technology; Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram; University of Kerala; and the University of Sussex.

Reports quoted an immigration officer at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) at the Thiruvananthapuram Airport saying the reason for Osella’s deportation could not be revealed and was done ‘as per orders from higher officials’.

Osella was quoted by a media house in an email saying that the immigration personnel and the immigration supervisor were extremely unfriendly and impolite and that they said it was a ‘Government of India decision/order’. His one-year research visa expires only mid-April, he said.

Osella’s association with India, especially Kerala, started in the late 1980s, with him publishing extensively on the lives of people, relationships, trends and reforms within communities in the State. Among his recent works is an exploration of the emergence of various strands of Islamic reforms in Kerala, and the relationship between religious practice, politics and economic action. However, reports said neither his work was controversial nor did the conference on Friday nor the organisers have anything politically sensitive.

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