– M Rafi Ahmed
All eyes are on the Indian origin democrat Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the first and youngest Muslim to adorn the post of Mayor of New York. According to The New York Times, Mamdani takes the credit of being the second youngest since 1917 when John Purroy Mitchel, a reformer known as the “Boy Mayor,” was elected and served one term. No doubt, Mamdani’s youth and fresh vision attracted a broad swath of progressive voters, even as his opponents focused on his relative lack of experience.
Notably, Mamdani, a practising Shia Muslim, was born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda. He is the son of Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, celebrated for films like Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, and The Namesake, and Mahmood Mamdani, a prominent Ugandan scholar of African history and postcolonial theory. Moreover, he spent his early life in Cape Town, South Africa, before he relocated to New York City at the age of seven.
From Bronx High School of Science to Bowdoin College, where he earned a degree in Africana Studies, Mamdani’s education reflected a constant engagement with justice, history, and the politics of identity. Mamdani’s mayoral bid was not just a campaign; it was a movement in American politics. With a staggering 20,000 volunteers mobilised across boroughs, his grassroots machinery rivalled anything the city had seen in recent history.
His electoral manifesto attracted the electorates which included a citywide rent freeze to protect tenants from gentrification and displacement besides Fare-free public buses aimed at easing the burden on working-class commuters and City-owned grocery stores to combat food deserts and corporate monopolies while not to speak of Higher taxes on New York’s wealthiest, in pursuit of equity-driven fiscal reform.
The campaign’s energy crackled online and offline. Memes, street canvassing, rallies, and cultural festivals – all were fused into a narrative of urgency and inclusion. This wasn’t just politics. This was a generational challenge to the status quo. It may be noted that Mamdani has long been a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians.
In 2023, he introduced a bill to end the tax-exempt status of New York charities with ties to Israeli settlements that violate international human rights law. The bill was deemed a “non-starter” by Assembly leadership and went nowhere. He has sharply criticised Israel’s actions in Gaza and has voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He has also said he believes that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should be arrested.
Madurai native Abu Khan, a software pro in San Francisco, California said that Mamdani during his campaign stated that there is no room for antisemitism in New York City, adding that if he were elected, he would increase funding to combat hate crimes. He has consistently drawn a distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. His campaign excited the city’s roughly one million odd Muslims and he regularly visited mosques and made his faith a centrepiece of his campaign.
It is learnt that Mamdani used one of his first campaign videos to talk about the city’s affordability crisis by breaking down the rising cost of a meal from a halal food cart, and later filmed himself breaking the Ramadan fast on the subway by devouring a giant burrito. The focus on his background also became a way for Mr. Mamdani to highlight the multicultural nature of his coalition and of the city he hoped to run. “We know that to stand in public as a Muslim is also to sacrifice the safety that we can sometimes find in the shadows,” Mamdani is reported to have said.
In his X post, Mamdani writes: In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done. My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it. I am honoured to be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City. The city’s youngest Mayor is just 34 who has extended support to raise New York City’s minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030.
[The author is former Indian Express and Deccan Chronicle chief]
