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The Indian couple who won a $200,000 settlement over 'food racism' at US university
The Indian couple who won a $200,000 settlement over 'food racism' at US university
A dispute that began over heating a dish in a microwave has ended with two Indian students winning a $200,000 settlement from a US university.
Aditya Prakash and his fiancee, Urmi Bhattacheryya, told the BBC they filed a civil rights lawsuit against the University of Colorado, Boulder, after they faced a series of "microaggressions and retaliatory actions" following the microwave incident.
The harassment began, the lawsuit alleged, after a university staff member objected to Prakash heating up his lunch of palak paneer - one of northern India's most popular dishes, made of pureed spinach and paneer (considered an Indian equivalent of cottage cheese) - in a microwave on campus, because of the way it smelled.
In response to the BBC's questions, the university said it could not comment on the "specific circumstances" surrounding the students' claims of discrimination and harassment due to privacy laws, but added it was "committed to fostering an inclusive environment for all students, faculty and staff regardless of national origin, religion, culture and other classes protected under US laws and by university policies".
"When these allegations arose in 2023, we took them seriously and adhered to established, robust processes to address them, as we do with all claims of discrimination and harassment. We reached an agreement with the students in September [2025] and deny any liability in this case," the university said.
Prakash said for them, the point of the lawsuit was not the money. "It was about making a point - that there are consequences to discriminating against Indians for their 'Indianness'."
The lawsuit has received significant media coverage in India since it was first reported last week, starting a conversation around what many have described as "food racism" in Western countries. Many Indians on social media have shared their own experiences of facing ridicule over their food habits abroad.
Some have also pointed out that discrimination over food is rampant in India as well, where non-vegetarian food is banned in many schools and colleges over perceptions of it being impure or dirty. People from disadvantaged castes and north-eastern states often face bias over their food habits, with some complaining about the smell of the ingredients they use.
And it's not just Indian or South Asian food - communities from Africa, Latin America and other parts of Asia have also shared their experiences of being shamed over their food habits.
Prakash and Bhattacheryya claim their ordeal began in September 2023. Prakash, a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the university, was microwaving his lunch of palak paneer when a British staff member allegedly remarked that his food was giving off a "pungent" odour and told him that there was a rule against heating foods with strong odours in that microwave.
Prakash said the rule wasn't mentioned anywhere and when he later inquired about which foods were considered pungent, he was told that sandwiches were not, while curry was.
Prakash alleged that the exchange was followed by a series of actions by the university which led to him and Bhattacheryya - who was also a PhD student there - losing their research funding, teaching roles and even the PhD advisers they had worked with for months.
In May 2025, Prakash and Bhattacheryya filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging discriminatory treatment and a "pattern of escalating retaliation" against them.
In September, the university settled the lawsuit. Such settlements are usually arrived at to avoid lengthy and expensive court battles for both parties.
According to the terms of the settlement, the university agreed to give the students their degrees but denied all liabilities and banned them from studying or working there in future.
In its statement shared with the BBC, the university added: "CU Boulder's Anthropology Department has worked to rebuild trust among students, faculty and staff. Among other efforts, department leaders met with graduate students, faculty and staff to listen and discuss changes that best support the department's efforts to foster an inclusive and supportive environment for all."
"Individuals who are determined to be responsible for violating university policies preventing discrimination and harassment are held accountable," it added.
Prakash says that this isn't his first brush with discrimination over food.
When he was growing up in Italy, his school teachers would often ask him to sit at a separate table during lunch breaks because his classmates found the smell of his food "off-putting", he says.
"Acts like isolating me from my European classmates or stopping me from using a shared microwave because of how my food smells are how white people control your Indianness and shrink the spaces you can exist in," he says.
He adds that there is a long history of food being used to put down Indian and other ethnic groups.
"The word 'curry' has been conflated with the 'smell' of marginalised communities who toil in kitchens and peoples' homes and has been turned into a pejorative term for 'Indian'," he says.
Bhattacheryya says that even someone like former Vice-President Kamala Harris isn't immune to being insulted over food.
She points to a 2024 social media post by far-right activist Laura Loomer saying that if Harris became president, the White House "will smell like curry". Loomer has denied being racist.
In the lawsuit, Bhattacheryya also alleged she faced retaliation after she invited Prakash to speak as a guest lecturer on the topic of cultural relativism in her anthropology class. Cultural relativism is the view that no culture is superior or inferior to another as cultural practices of all groups exist within their own cultural context.
During the lecture, Prakash says he shared several examples of food racism he had encountered, including the palak paneer incident, without naming anyone.
Bhattacheryya says that she also faced racist abuse when she posted a thread on X about the "systemic racism" she and Prakash were facing at the university in 2024.
Below the post, there are several comments supporting the couple but also ones that said, "go back to India", "decolonisation was a mistake" and "it's not just the food, many of you don't bathe and we know".
Prakash and Bhattacheryya said what they wanted from the university was to be heard and understood; for their hurt and pain at being "othered" to be acknowledged and for amends to be made in a meaningful way.
They claim that they never received a meaningful apology from the university. The university did not respond to the BBC's question about this.
They have since returned to India and say that they might never go back to the US.
"No matter how good you are at what you do, the system is constantly telling you that because of your skin colour or your nationality, you can be sent back any time. The precarity is acute and our experience at the university is a good example of this," Prakash says.
Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook.
Source: BBC
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