‘I’m living in fear’: Historian researching India faces deportation from UK for spending too much time in India

Home Office orders Manikarnika Dutta to leave UK for exceeding permitted number of days abroad while conducting research in India

Manikarnika Dutta (By special arrangement)

A top academic has said she is living in fear of being deported from the UK after being told she had spent too many days out of the country for research work.

Manikarnika Dutta, 37, had been conducting research as part of her academic commitments to the University of Oxford, which required access to archives stored in India.

Her research meant she spent 691 days outside the UK, exceeding the Home Office’s limit of 548 days abroad during a 10-year period before applying for indefinite leave to stay.

Ms Dutta, assistant professor of history at University College Dublin, and her husband Souvik Naha, a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, applied last October for indefinite leave to remain in the UK based on long-term residency. While his application was approved, hers was rejected.

Despite being married and living in the UK for more than a decade, the Home Office also ruled she lacked sufficient family ties to Britain.

“I was broken,” Ms Dutta told the Independent.

Manikarnika Dutta with her husband, Souvik Naha (Manikarnika Dutta)

She hit out at the “out of touch” Home Office, arguing that the immigration rules cited by the department didn’t accommodate the demands of academic research, especially for international scholars.

“Your first priority and your first commitment is towards your academics and the best research that you can produce,” Ms Dutta said. “So whatever is needed for that, you do it. It is not about counting those number of days. It is your research.”

Ms Dutta’s immigration status means she is concerned that if she leaves the UK, it could be difficult – or even impossible – for her to return.

“I have been living with that fear,” she told The Independent.

Ms Dutta asked for an administrative review, but the Home Office upheld its decision and instructed her to leave the UK or face a 10-year re-entry ban and possible prosecution for overstaying.

She has since launched a legal challenge against the decision.

The Home Office has agreed to reconsider its decision within the next three months, though it may still uphold the original ruling.

Until then, Ms Dutta has been left in limbo. She tells The Independent that “every time I took the flight from London, Gatwick to Dublin”, she was scared and “while coming back every single time, I literally have to explain my situation, because in my share code, what was really written is that my decision is pending.”

The emotional toll the situation has taken is even heavier. Ms Dutta says that this has impacted not just her and her husband but their parents in Kolkatta, India as well. Ms Dutta’s mother, who was unaware of the full extent of the problem, is now distressed. She had intentionally kept her family in the dark to avoid causing them unnecessary worry, she says. However, the recent media coverage has made it difficult to shield them from the situation.

“My mother for the last two days, it was very difficult,” she says.

Her husband, Souvik Naha tells The Independent: “We strongly believe that the Home Office made a clinical error in this.” He says: “I am fortunate enough to be able to travel to India, but she can't, and that is really psychologically very damaging that she is kind of been considered as a persona non grata, who cannot really have any protection under the UK law or international law when it comes to travelling.”

The couple got married in January 2015 in India and live together in south London. However, both commute for work: Ms Dutta travels to Dublin and Mr Naha travels to Glasgow for work two to three days a week and then returns to London to spend the weekends and the first half of the week with her.

Ms Dutta first came to the UK in September 2012 on a student visa. Later, she obtained a spouse visa as a dependant of her husband, who had a visa under the “global talent” route.

Ms Dutta tells The Independent that there is a need for better communication between educational institutions and the Home Office. She says that the UK immigration system doesn’t recognise PhD research as professional work experience, despite its demanding nature and contributions to academia. “Rules really need to be flexible. They need to be human.”

She says: “I’ve done two postdocs, first in Oxford, the second in Bristol... you have to pay taxes to work in the UK for five years, and then that counts. So with your PhD years, it really doesn’t count (for visa and residency purposes).”

Mr Naha, meanwhile, says: “It’s very difficult for us to get in touch with the Home Office. Nobody picks up calls, nobody responds to emails.”

In the past, several academics have been asked by the Home Office to leave Britain for similar reasons. In 2015, Dr Miwa Hirono, a renowned Japanese academic and government adviser, was forced to leave the UK due to strict immigration rules. In 2019, more than 1,000 academics signed an open letter protesting the UK Home Office’s decision to deny Cambridge research fellow Asiya Islam indefinite leave to remain. The rejection was based on her exceeding the permitted number of days abroad, even though her time abroad was necessary for her PhD research on gender and class in urban India.

The Independent has contacted the Home Office for comment.