'My Mouth Dropped': Anthropologist Filippo Osella on Deportation From Kerala

In the 1980s, he had worked in the state for two-and-half years doing fieldwork for his doctoral research.

Anthropologist Filippo Osella (middle). 

(Photo: University of Toronto)

Anthropologist Filippo Osella, who was deported last week to the United Kingdom from Thiruvananthapuram International airport in Kerala, has said that his research visa had been approved by the Indian government.

At the airport, the officials took Osella's photograph and fingerprints and then told him that he would be deported. The move is shocking also because his research is partly funded by the UK government.

"My mouth dropped. When I asked why I am being deported they said, it's a government order, we cannot discuss and we will not talk to you. That was it," Osella told the BBC from his home in Brighton.

While he was waiting for a bus at London's Heathrow Airport, he wrote an account of the incident consisting of 1,843 words.

While Osella was not allowed to get in touch with his Indian friends, he was also ill-treated by airport authorities while being denied access to his blood pressure medication.

Osella had visited Kerala several times before the incident.

When in 2019, he had come to Kerala for a conference, he had an appropriate conference visa.

He even came to Kerala last year in September with an appropriate research visa.

In the 1980s, he worked in the state for two-and-half years doing fieldwork for his doctoral research on the social mobility of the biggest Hindu community in the state, the Ezhavas.

He had obtained a PhD in Anthropology at the London School of Economics in 1993.

"I hope this is not my last visit to Kerala," he concluded, during his interview to the BBC.

(With inputs from BBC)