In his victory speech, the newly elected Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani touched President Donald Trump’s raw nerve. He told Trump, “since I know you are watching, I have four words for you…turn the volume up”. He went on to say, “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight led by an immigrant.”
An immigrant mayor in the most important and populous city of the United States in the age of Trump, who built up his campaign, narrative and agenda against the “immigrants”, is an expression of resistance against Trump's policies, particularly towards the immigrants. The everyday brutalities reported from across the US by ICE officials against people in the name of finding out “illegal immigrants” have caused an outrage across the country. Mamdani has proved a symbol of resistance against all that.
Mamdani represents everything that Trump does not like. He is an immigrant and he is a Muslim. Besides being an immigrant, his ultra-left socialist leanings both in politics and economics, will haunt the US President for a long time. He tried his desperate best to prevent Mamdani from getting elected, but failed. Trump even endorsed Andrew Comou, the sitting Democratic Mayor, who had lost to Mamdani in the primaries but decided to contest independently. Although he put up a spirited fight, the city eventually went along with Mamdani. Curtis Silwa was the Republican candidate who was a distant third with Republican rallying behind Comou, whom they thought could defeat Mamdani.
Mamdani wears many hats. He is an immigrant of Indian origin born in Uganda to noted film director Mira Nair and eminent historian Mahmood Mamdani. Zohran identifies himself as a Shia Muslim. He also identifies himself as a socialist and says it proudly, he has not to apologise for anything.
While his “progressive” policies like free bus travel and putting a ceiling on the house rent has appealed to the lower income groups in New York City, his aggressively pro-Palestine stance has won him many supporters among the Muslim voters. He is on record having said that if the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu comes to New York, he will get him arrested.
Mamdani has also been unreasonably critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even describing him as a “war criminal”. In what looks like a pathological hatred for Modi, he accuses him of being responsible for the killings of Muslims in Gujarat. So much so, he once even claimed that Muslims had been exterminated from Gujarat terming it “genocide”. He repeated the same thing during a visit to a Gurdwara in New York.
Also read: Zohran Mamdani makes history as NYC’s first Muslim mayor
While Mamdani identifies himself as a “socialist”, his line of thinking remains that of “religious conservatism”. Although he has a mixed parenthood, his father being a Shia Muslim and mother a Hindu, he identifies himself as a Muslim only. And he did manage to capitalise on the Muslim identity in the Mayor elections. New York city is estimated to have about seven lakh Muslim voters, who include the natives, Arabs and South Asians. Mamdani who polled over one million votes, first time since 1969, obviously managed to sweep entire Muslim votes, as the Muslims voted in large numbers this time.
Mamdani capitalised his two identities, of being a Muslim and an ultra-left socialist as it appealed to two distinct sections of people. While for the Muslim voters, who constitute substantial numbers in New York City, he provided an identity and touched the sentiment of “belonging”; for the working class population, he posed and presented himself as their messiah.
Otherwise, ultra-left socialists the way Mamdani presents himself, mostly identify themselves as atheists, while he has been aggressively vocal about his “Shia Muslim” identity. And it worked for him as he was confident that his being a Muslim and proclaiming that identity would not matter much to the working class population, whose concerns are survival rather than the identity.
Mamdani, who has rarely lived in India, and was in fact born in Uganda to Indian parents, quoted the first Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his victory speech. Mamdani quoted from Nehru’s famous ‘tryst of destiny speech’ made on the eve of India’s independence. Mamdani, while quoting Nehru said, “a moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” He obviously related it to New York City suggesting it was stepping from the old into the new.
While Mamdani has adopted a belligerently hostile stance towards Prime Minister Modi, by quoting Pandit Nehru he has tried to appeal to a different section of the people, particularly among the diaspora that he still cherishes the pluralistic values that India is known for. Also being aware of overwhelming support for Modi among the Indian diaspora living in the US, including New York, he said, he respected everybody’s sentiments and will be representing everyone.
His political leanings and preferences and prejudices notwithstanding, Mamdani’s election as the Mayor of New York City has indeed led to a feeling of joy among people across South Asia, India in particular.
This is just a gentle reminder to Donald Trump that he just cannot wish away immigrants. After all, America is the land of immigrants only; discovered, developed and built by immigrants.
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