Two Indian scholars won a $200,000 settlement after alleging racial discrimination at a US university, saying a dispute over the “smell” of Indian food reflected deeper bias, cultural disrespect, and institutional retaliation.
Indian Scholars Win USD 200000 Settlement in US After ‘Palak Paneer Smell’ Dispute Turns Into Racism Case (Image Source: beyondthebayoublog.com
Two Indian scholars recently drew attention after they received a $200,000 settlement in the United States in a racial discrimination case. After the legal matter concluded, they told what happened and why they decided to take legal action. They said the issue was never about someone disliking the smell of palak paneer, a common Indian dish.
According to them, the incident took place at an American university, and the person who made remarks about the food being “pungent” was British. They believe the response they faced showed the same kind of racial thinking that Indians have long associated with colonial attitudes described in history and family stories.
What started as a simple moment of reheating lunch turned into something much larger for Aditya Prakash and his fiancée Urmi Bhattacheryya. They said the issue grew into a matter of identity, dignity, and cultural respect. The disagreement eventually led to a civil rights lawsuit and the financial settlement with the university.
They said, “This was never about food.” In their view, the episode reflected what they called a lingering “Dogs and Indians” mindset, where certain cultures are treated as less welcome in shared Western spaces.
The dispute began when Prakash heated palak paneer in a departmental microwave. They said the matter was not about a single comment but about deeper issues of power and respect. They described it as an example of “olfactory discrimination” — a situation where food from South Asia is labeled as disturbing or inappropriate, based on stereotypes rooted in colonial history.
They argued that Western academic institutions often study marginalised communities in India but fail to show equal respect when Indians bring their own culture into those same spaces.
The incident occurred on September 5, 2023, roughly a year after Prakash joined the university. While he heated his lunch, a female staff member objected to the “smell” and asked him not to use that microwave.
Prakash said the words used to describe his food are “commonly deployed as a racist slur against Indians.”
“This is a very particular phenomenon in the West, where the smell—or the so-called perceived smell—of food stops being neutral the moment it is associated with the Global South, especially South Asia,” he said.
Prakash said he first tried to resolve the matter politely.
“I told her I did not appreciate the comments she made about my food. I tried to reason with her. She is from from Britain, and I said that given the number of Indians, Pakistanis, and other South Asians, she would have some familiarity with this kind of food. But even if she did not, basic respect for another person’s food, whether Indian or otherwise, is simply human decency,” he said.
He said she denied making such remarks.
“She asked, ‘What comments?’ So I told her she had called my food ‘pungent’. Each time, I kept saying that I would be done in a minute.”
Prakash said he tried to prevent the situation from growing worse.
“Food is just food. I was thinking about what happens to South Asians—especially Indians—who face this kind of behaviour every day. Someone has to say it’s not OK. This was never about taking someone to task.”
Prakash stressed that no food smell is objectively worse than another.
“There is no scale where one kind of food smells worse than another. Food just smells, and these ideas are culturally determined. At its core, this is about mutual respect. In the West, food has been used against us in a very specific way, reinforced through stereotypes in popular culture—from The Simpsons to the character of Apu.”
At first, he thought the issue might come from lack of awareness.
“Even then, I felt it might have come from ignorance. That is why I spoke directly to her and said food is just food, and that I would be done in a minute,” Prakash said.
But the situation worsened when she insisted he should not heat his food near her workspace.
“That is where it became deeply problematic. Questions of food and shared space are also questions of power. The fact that she was white and British altered the context significantly,” Prakash said.
Prakash said the experience reminded him of colonial-era discrimination.
“Many of us grew up hearing stories from our grandparents about life before 1947, when public spaces carried signs saying, ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. To see something like that being recreated today in the US, in a public university, in an anthropology department—a discipline meant to study culture—is deeply disturbing. That, in a sense, is the one-line description of what happened.”
Both scholars repeated that the issue concerned respect and belonging, not just lunch.
“It was about dignity, belonging, and the quiet humiliations that many Indians abroad learn to endure,” they said.
Prakash added that Indians are often mocked for two things in the West: their accents and their food.
“One is our accents… The other is our food, which is half of one’s being. This is the food I grew up on—the food my mother fed me. There is a historicity to food, and I felt that was being attacked.”
Prakash said he had faced similar treatment as a teenager in Italy.
“When I was in Italy during my school days, I carried paratha-sabzi for lunch, and other students would sit away from me. That really hurt me. I first encountered this at 14, and then again nearly two decades later, at 32. Time had passed, but the context in the West remained unchanged.”
Instead of resolving the issue quickly, Prakash said the matter escalated within the department.
“If there was no ill intent, the simplest response would have been to apologise and move on. Instead, it was escalated.”
Students later brought Indian food in solidarity, which he described as peaceful support. Still, the department banned microwave use.
“I said in a meeting that this would further stigmatise our food. I said, ‘This is a stain that will never go away.’ Everyone eats, and everyone will feel this impact.”
He said this showed discrimination had moved from personal to institutional.
“I could not allow my culture, my food, my country to be insulted in an institutional way.”
After they shared their story online, many Indians from different countries said they had similar experiences. Some said they avoided opening lunchboxes in public.
Bhattacheryya said they also faced racist trolling, including phrases like “All Indians smell” and insults about Indian food.
She said the issue became a pattern of retaliation after they spoke up.
They said the situation harmed their academic careers. Advisors left, funding was affected, and they lost teaching roles. Although both completed their programme with perfect GPAs and grants, they eventually left the PhD programme.
Prakash said, “This case shows that even powerful institutions can be held accountable,” adding that discrimination has consequences.
He clarified that the lawsuit was not about money.
“It was about making a point—that there are consequences to discriminating against Indians for their Indianness.”
Bhattacheryya called the outcome a moral victory and said it highlighted “olfactory racism.”
The case settled in September. The university agreed to award their degrees but denied wrongdoing. The agreement also prevents them from studying or working at that university again.
