Wafting Smells Of Palak Paneer Triggers $200,000 Settlement For Indian PhD Students

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India-West News Desk

BOULDER, CO – The smell of palak paneer drifting out of a shared microwave set off a chain of events that would, two years later, end with a $200,000 settlement, the award of Master’s degrees, and a quiet departure from the United States for two Indian doctoral students.

On September 5, 2023, Aditya Prakash, then a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder, was reheating his lunch when a staff member objected to what she described as the pungent smell of his Indian food and asked him not to use the microwave. Prakash declined to comply.

What followed, Prakash and his partner Urmi Bhattacheryya say, was not a one off dispute over food etiquette but the beginning of sustained discrimination that unfolded against a broader political backdrop in the country.

“The message wasn’t always explicit, but it was there,” Bhattacheryya later told The Indian Express. She linked that climate to the hardening of attitudes in the United States after Donald Trump’s election, describing racism as subtle rather than overt, yet deeply felt. “There is a narrowing of empathy. Discomfort is tolerated less, especially when it comes from immigrants or people of color,” she said.

In September 2025, the University of Colorado Boulder agreed to pay the couple $200,000 and confer on them the master’s degrees typically awarded to PhD students along the way to a doctorate, while denying any liability in the matter. The settlement also barred both from any future enrolment or employment at the university.

Leading up to the settlement were months of escalating tension.

Prakash, now 34 and back in India, said that in the days following the palak paneer incident he was repeatedly summoned to meetings with senior faculty and accused of making staff feel unsafe. Complaints were filed against him with the Office of Student Conduct. He said the anthropology department later refused to grant him and Bhattacheryya their master’s degrees, a decision that ultimately prompted them to seek legal recourse.

Bhattacheryya, 35, who was also pursuing a PhD at the university, said the fallout quickly extended to her as well. She lost her teaching assistantship without warning or explanation. Days later, when she and other students brought Indian food to campus, they were accused of inciting a riot, an allegation she said was later dismissed.

In May 2025, the couple filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, alleging discrimination and retaliation. The suit argued that after Prakash raised concerns about discriminatory treatment, the university engaged in a pattern of escalating punitive actions.

In a statement to The Indian Express, university spokesperson Deborah Mendez Wilson said, “The university reached an agreement with the plaintiffs and denies any liability. The university has established processes to address allegations of discrimination and harassment, and it adhered to those processes in this matter. CU Boulder remains committed to fostering an inclusive environment for students, faculty and staff.”