Five lessons for India’s Opposition from Zohran Mamdani’s triumph

Waking up to news of Zohran Mamdani’s resounding victory in the polls for mayor of New York, I typed this message to my close friends: “Mamdani’s victory is a victory for every value that we hold close to our hearts.” Each of them concurred. Some replied jubilantly: “Mamdani Mubarak!”

It is highly uncommon for the election for leadership of a city on the other side of the globe to feel so profoundly personal. What stirred so much hope and elation was not simply Mamdani’s triumph. It was the fact that he combated what just a year earlier seemed an impossible battle, with steadfast moral courage, with imagination, with charm, with verve, with energy and with compassion.

What far-right leaders peddle – and in this, often India’s Narendra Modi leads the pack – is hate targeting of threatened minorities, often of Muslim identity, and immigrants. They are powered by big global capital, whose mega-profits they advance while extinguishing the rights of working people. As unbelievable levels of wealth accumulate in incredibly few hands, dignified survival of the rest of the world becomes harder and harder.

Those who do rise to fight them tend to do so with timidity and compromise, ever fearful of majoritarian anger and the flight of capital. Their stands on minority and immigrant rights, on religious and cultural freedoms, on democratic rights of free dissent and expression, on labour rights and neo-liberal capital, and on the genocidal war of Israel in Gaza, do not differ significantly from those of who they seek to replace.

It is here that Mamdani stands so far apart. Let me quote from his victory speech, something leaders of parties standing in opposition to the far-right must heed carefully. “We have bowed at the altar of caution,” he declared, “and we have paid a mighty price. Too many working people cannot recognise themselves in our party and too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they’ve been left behind.”

In the new age that he affirms “we make for ourselves”, he said “we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another”. This new age will be defined by “a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another”. He speaks of the “light” that will banish this moment of political darkness.

When I was young, our songs, our poetry, our slogans would resonate with dreams of the naya zamana that lay ahead, the light of a new dawn of equality and kindness that we would collectively bring forth from the darkness of colonised India. The “new age” that Mamdani speaks of is all of this naya zamana, but fashioned for a new era.

Zohran Mamdani’s battle and success, I am convinced, contain important lessons for political formations fighting fascistic autocracies around the world. These are: multiculturalism, democratic socialism and moral courage.

There are at least five lessons that I identify here which the Indian political Opposition to the seemingly unstoppable Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh juggernaut should learn from Mamdani’s ascendancy, as they battle (often dispiritedly, often wearily) the surging politics of Hindutva supremacism backed by oligarchic capital.

1 Mamdani’s emphatic assertion of his Muslim identity

The first lesson that I point to is Mamdani’s proud and emphatic affirmation of his Muslim identity. At no point did Mamdani soften, dilute, divert attention away from, or apologise for his religious identity.

In America after 9/11, anti-Muslim prejudice and hate have become widely entrenched. Social media is filled up with charges that he supports terror and even would bring in Sharia law!

Mamdani was undeterred. As he declared in his victory speech, “I am young” (adding ironically “despite my best efforts to grow older”. He added, “I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologise for any of this”.

Born a Shia Muslim, he spoke to the Indian Eye of being raised in an interfaith family. “My mother’s side of the family is Hindu” he said, “and I grew up celebrating Diwali, Holi and Raksha Bandhan. Though I identify as Muslim, these Hindu traditions and practices have shaped my worldview…” His mother named him Zohran, which means the first star in the sky.

Peter Mandaville, a professor at George Mason University speaks also of what he sees as his “distinctively Muslim approach to democratic socialism. He has articulated an understanding of Muslimness that is tied to marginality, invisibility, not being seen.”

Mamdani also spoke often during his campaign, sometimes tearing up, about the discrimination faced personally by him and his family. “I get messages that say the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim” with death threats to him and those he loved, he said. Just days before the election, Mamdani stood outside a mosque and spoke with tears and declared, “To be Muslim in New York,” he said, “is to expect indignity…No more.” He rejected these attacks and used his campaign to call for solidarity, urging his community to vote and assert their place in public life and governance.

In a commentary for The New York Times, Max Fisher explains how Mamdani’s open expression of his Muslim faith is central to his political identity, not a symbolic gesture or campaign branding. Mamdani frames his faith as a source of ethical commitment to justice, solidarity, and community care. In so doing, he challenges the assumption that American Muslim politicians must minimise or conceal religious identity to gain electoral legitimacy.

I wish I could hear, for instance, Rahul Gandhi declare with the same pride as mamdani his diverse minority identity. Could he say something like: “My mother was raised Catholic. My father was half Parsi, half Hindu. I therefore am proud to contain within my own family history the kind of religious diversity that is India’s finest civilisational legacy.”

This would be the assertion of the kind of universalist identity that would include Indians of all faiths and castes, and would reassure those who are currently stigmatised and excluded. Why instead does he lay claim to be a “jenuedhari Brahmin”, namely a Brahmin who wears a jenue or sacred thread? A jenue is worn after an initiation ceremony for which only “dwija” or “twice-born” Hindus, or in other words caste-Hindus, are eligible. This identity by contrast excludes not just people of non-Hindu faiths like Christians and Muslims, but also Dalits and Adivasis.

2 Mamdani’s proud embrace of multi-culturalism

The second lesson that the Indian political Opposition could learn from Mamdani’s example is his emphatic embrace of “multi-culteralism”. This is an idea akin to the Indian idea of “secularism”, which is not the denial of religious faith but equal acceptance of every faith including the absence of faith, an idea that also contains within it the guarantee of equal rights to people of every faith.

Across the Indian political spectrum, there is today a marked reluctance to even use the word “secularism”, let alone lay claim to its worthy practice. This again is an abject moral and political surrender to the Hindutva project, a tacit genuflecting to the idea of a Hindu nation.

This same discomfort or even a tacit abandonment of a core principle of the Indian Constitution is reflected in their reticence to be seen in the company of Muslim politicians, or to advocate for affirmative actions like scholarships for minorities, or even to condemn the hate attacks and lynchings of Muslims.

By contrast, listen instead to Mamdani’s resonant words in his victory speech. He says that “we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of anti-Semitism”, and he further adds, “where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power”.

“Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties. To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this. This city is your city and this democracy is yours too.”

In his campaign, he visited mosques, churches, synagogues, Hindu temples and gurudwaras. Fluent in Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Spanish, and Arabic, he was able to effortlessly communicate as he went from door to door in his campaign with a mind boggling diversity of people.

Reflecting on his politics, Furqan Ali and Irum Khan observe that Mamdani’s is the only path to peace: “People – whether in Pakistan, New York, Paris or Nairobi – must learn that identity doesn’t have to be a fight but a shared human story. Diversity is not going away. And if we want peaceful, united societies, we must choose a path that includes everyone without erasing anyone”.

3 Uncompromising support for the Palestinian people

Another striking feature of Mamdani’s campaign was his outspoken support for Palestinian rights and criticism of Israeli actions, describing Israel’s war on Gaza as genocide. This was considered highly risky politically. New York is after all home to more Jewish people than any place in the world outside Israel. Community contributions are fabled for their influence on American politics.

Kamala Harris, as the Democratic nominee for president against Trump, adopted a position on the Israel-Palestine conflict that was not significantly different from that of her adversary.

Despite this, Mamdani was audacious in giving unequivocal support for the Palestinian cause. People who know him say Palestine was an issue that he was passionate about even when in college. Palestine is again an example of his moral and political convictions trumping conventional political wisdom. He frequently declared that the Palestinian cause was “central to my identity”.

He would frame his pro-Palestinian stance within a broader human-rights framework, arguing that Palestinian rights are not a side issue but a foundational element of his politics.

In the course of his campaign trail, Mamdani often pledged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu if he entered New York, implementing the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court in November 2024. Netenyahu is charged with a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mamdani repeatedly affirmed that Israel has a right to exist, but with this caveat: “with equal rights for all.” After October 7, Mamdani consistently referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide” and held the United States, through its support of Israel, is “subsidising a genocide”. In a Manhattan synagogue he said, “we must never give up on the conviction that all life, Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab, is equally precious.”

But this did not mean that he was soft on antisemitism. Mamdani claimed that New York is experiencing a “crisis of antisemitism” and said that he would create a Department of Community Safety that would focus on anti-hate programmes.

Contrast this again with India. India has travelled a long way from the time it was a leading champion of Palestinian rights. Today it is one of the few countries in the global south that is a frontline ally of Israel. India’s support of Israel remained steady throughout the two years of the Israeli assault on Gaza (which South Africa described as a genocide when it moved the International Court of Justice). India also continues to export armaments to Israel, and this benefits Indian big business including Adani.

Hindutva social media is crowded with anti-Palestinian hate, and studies have revealed that the largest quantum of fake news targeting Palestine globally is produced out of India. The Indian political Opposition – with a few exceptions – has been timid and muted in its support for Palestine, presumably self-muzzled because of the success of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh propaganda machine to convert Palestine into a “Muslim” issue rather than one of the right of the long-suppressed people to fight forced occupation, apartheid and now genocide.

4 Mamdani’s clear opposition to Modi and the politics of Hindutva

Also fraught with political risks was Mamdani’s unwavering and vocal opposition to Narendra Modi and the politics of Hindutva. The risks lay in the reality that the Indian diaspora is the wealthiest community in the United States, and wields significant influence in American public life. Forty four percent Asian American Hindus have a family income of more than $150,000, and six in ten have obtained postgraduate degrees.

The worry about openly criticising Modi is that a large section of Indian immigrants of Hindu identity are believed to be passionate supporters of Modi and the RSS.

Again, whatever the risk to his election, his opposition to Modi’s politics is clearly a matter of personal conviction for Mamdani. He joined a protest in 2020 on Times Square against the Ram Temple built at the site of where the Babri Masjid was demolished by a Hindutva mob in Ayodhya. He criticised the role the BJP played in this and in the ways that it normalised the violence.

“I am here today to protest against the BJP government in India and the demolition of the Babri Masjid,” he announced during the protest. In 2023, in the run-up to Modi’s visit to the United States, he read out notes from Umar Khalid, the charismatic young activist who remains imprisoned without trial.

During his campaign, in a town hall for mayoral candidates in May, when Mamdani was asked if he would meet with Modi if the prime minister were to visit the city again, he retorted he wouldn’t because Modi is a “war criminal”.

“Narendra Modi helped to orchestrate what was a mass slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat” he said, referring to the horrific communal pogrom of 2002 when Modi was chief minister. He reminded the gathering that after the 2002 massacre, Modi was refused a US visa for “severe violations of religious freedom”.

Mamdani would frequently underline his vision of a pluralistic India, an India where everyone, regardless of religion, can belong. Mamdani asserted that he grew up believing in “an India that celebrated pluralism, an India where everyone belonged, no matter their religion”.

In contrast, he said, Modi and his party’s vision “only has room for certain kinds of Indians”. Mamdani critique therefore is not just personal opposition to Modi, but as a deeper conflict between inclusive pluralism and a majoritarian national-vision.

His criticism of Modi led to a massive campaign of hate against him by Modi’s supporters in the diaspora. The labels of jihadi, Islamist, anti-Hindu and anti-India were predictably thrown at him. Even within India, Aaj Tak, a pro-BJP channel, warned of a growing Muslim population in New York City, displaying visuals of women wearing hijabs in the city.

These attacks have become more shrill and toxic in both the US and India after his victory. Kayla Bassett, the director of research at the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate believes the attacks against Mamdani are a vehicle to attack the Muslim community more broadly. “This isn’t just about one individual,” she said. “It’s about promoting a narrative that casts Muslims as inherently suspect or un-American.”

Once more, Mandani’s outspoken and forceful opposition to both the ideology of Hindutva and religious hate crimes contrasts distressingly with the conspicuous reticence and timidity of most sections of the Indian political Opposition in robustly combating the ideology of Hindutva and punishing hate crimes

Under Modi, justice again and again evades the victims of the 2020 Delhi communal violence, numberless lynchings of unarmed men by mobs affiliated to Hindutva organisations, attacks on Christian and Muslim shrines, and recurring genocidal hate speech.

However, protests against all of this by the political Opposition are muted and public solidarity with the victims rare. The record of securing justice for hate crimes and hate speech in Opposition-ruled states is not conspicuously better. And far from standing in opposition to the fascistic ideology of Hindutva that is threatening to minorities and overturning the guarantees of the Constitution, political leaders and parties of the Opposition are much more often found instead robing themselves in garbs of “soft Hindutva” – in other words bidding to fight an ideology by presenting themselves are more authentic followers of the same ideology.

5 Mamdani’s rousing commitment to democratic socialism

As risky and audacious as his embrace of his identity as Muslim and as an immigrant is his fearless self-branding as a democratic socialist. This was especially hazardous in American politics, in which left politics has long been viewed with immense suspicion. US President Donald Trump and other Republicans promptly called him a communist. His socialism, which included reducing inequalities and taxing the rich, flies in the face of neo-liberal shibboleths. No wonder, 26 billionaires are reported to have spent over $22 million to support candidates opposing Mamdani.

His democratic socialism is again clearly an article of faith for Mamdani. Explaining his beliefs, he quoted a 1961 speech by Martin Luther King Jr: “When we talk about my politics, I call myself a democratic socialist, in many ways inspired by the words of Dr King from decades ago who said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country. And as income inequality has declined nationwide, it has increased in New York City. And, ultimately, what we need is a city where every single person can thrive.”

His attention to the granular details of his socialist agenda made clear that his adherence was not to an abstract ideology and instead was built on a concern for the everyday survival of working people. For him, this meant greater worker representation, worker rights, and strengthening public services to make life more affordable for ordinary people.

To address the costs of living crisis of New York residents, his socialist policies focus boldly on housing affordability, public transport access, worker protections, universal child care, a freeze on rents, making buses fast and free, and delivering universal healthcare.

Mamdani’s understanding of democratic socialism is remarkably similar to that of the founding fathers and mothers of India’s Constitution, and of Jawaharlal Nehru who Mamdani quoted in his victory speech. Unlike Marxian socialism, democratic socialism is not pivoted on the abolition of private property. It derives from an ethical commitment to egalitarianism.

It envisages workers’ rights at work, reducing inequality and the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and a social welfare state that provisions or ensures affordable access of every citizen to basic social needs like food and nutrition, education, healthcare, work, social security and public transport.

During the first four decades of the Indian republic, these duties of the state were widely endorsed and partially realised. However, from the mid-1980s, neo-liberalism swept away all of these goals of socialism. India grew rapidly, and with this wealth also grew but only in very few hands. This remained a period of almost jobless growth and the stagnation of wages. Public health, education and transport all declined precipitously. India’s position slumped consecutively in every annual Global Hunger Report, far behind much poorer countries. There is an elite capture of public policy, which serves not the working poor but international capital.

Unlike Mamdani, very few sections of India’s political Opposition except the Left publicly commit themselves to a restoration of socialism and to pulling down neo-liberalism from the altar on which it was placed for four decades resulting in the comprehensive detriment of lives of the working poor.

Each election brings with it a transient acknowledgment of the immense backwaters of impoverishment that continue as small islands of India “shine”. The response, however, is never a promise of a socialist reconstruction to build a more egalitarian economy or to secure affordable quality public education, healthcare, transport, housing and decent work with social security for all citizens.

It instead involves transfers of cash as a kind of largesse, even as electoral bribes with tax money, and bags of grain with the prime minister’s face printed on the bags. There is no promise, not even an imagination of how to raise working people and peasants from the cesspools of want and indignity to which neo-liberalism has condemned them.

Reclaiming moral courage

These then are the lessons that I wish for India’s political Opposition to the fascist Hindu supremacist and oligarchic neo-liberal project of the BJP-RSS. Piece together your badly shattered moral compass. I am sure it is not entirely lost. Then reclaim within yourself your moral courage, of the kind that Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru and Maulana Azad demonstrated when India gained its freedom amidst the slaughter of a million lives during the Partition riots, in the shadow of famine, illiteracy and millenia of caste and gender oppression. Reclaim the ideals that were the glue that built this nation critically wounded by two centuries of colonial oppression.

The ideal of building a country of equal belonging to people of every faith, caste, gender and language.

The ideal, in Gandhi’s immortal words, of wiping every tear from every eye.

I am grateful for research support from Sumaiya Fatima.

Harsh Mander is a peace and justice worker, writer, teacher who leads the Karwan e Mohabbat, a people’s campaign to fight hate with radical love and solidarity. He teaches part-time at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, and has authored many books, including Partitions of the Heart, Fatal Accidents of Birth and Looking Away.