The View From India newsletter: The making of American’s Mamdani moment

(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)

Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City pertains, first and foremost, to local governance in one of the world’s richest cities, but resonates well beyond, for the hope it has sparked for other movements. The Uganda-born, Muslim, Democratic Socialist, New York State Representative, Mamdani won decisively, beating rival candidates former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, with over 1 million votes — 50.4% of the total polled.

In their effort to cover different dimensions of the race and the outcome, many mainstream media outlets in the United States offered analytical takes on aspects ranging from the 34-year-old’s beard, and the significance of his three rings, to his wife’s attire on the night of the election win. Many reels on a Mayoral candidate who eats with his hands and speaks flawless Hindi made it to Indian social media algorithms as well. All these perhaps offer colour and flavour as the world gets to know an impressive young American politician, who wears many identities comfortably. But the significance of his win is not simply about his identity or New York’s endorsement of diversity. The core message of his Mr. Mamdani’s campaign was affordability and equality.

In loudly proclaiming that New York City belongs to all its residents, Mr. Mandani dared to offend the political and business establishment of the city and country at once. In boldly condemning Israel’s massacre in Gaza, he confronted America’s powerful Jewish lobby — and much of the political class that cannot stop pandering to it — in ways that few American politicians have.

Mr. Mamdani’s campaign was inspiring not only for upholding principles of social and economic justice, but also for its meticulous grassroots organisation, with a big team of committed activists that firmly believed in a more equal, just New York City. Centering affordable housing, child care, and accessible public transport, the campaign spoke to poor Americans, who lead very precarious lives, when collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires soared by $698bn in the past year, as a new Oxfam America report points out.

Many across the political spectrum speak about poverty, but refuse to see it as a symptom of inequality, the fundamental problem. A recent G20 report, led by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, flagged an ‘inequality emergency’ and called for an International Panel on Inequality.

The rise of the ultra-right and fascist forces, and the electoral success of authoritarian figures world over have repeatedly shown the mirror to liberal politics, and its abject failure to acknowledge, let alone address, economic injustices and widening inequalities. What Mr. Mamdani’s win also reinforces is that nothing challenges the hard right like a mass struggle grounded in class analysis, and striving for redistributive justice. Such a campaign is not easy to build. It is even harder to sustain. We saw the unending attacks on Mr. Mamdani, including from the Democratic Party establishment.

Through our news reports, analysis, and explainers, we tried to highlight the political import of Mamdani’s campaign and victory, and this significant moment in American politics. Reporting from New York, Anisha Dutta wrote: In his victory speech before a jubilant crowd in Brooklyn, the 34-year-old former state assemblyman declared, “Tonight, New York has stepped from the old into the new.” Quoting from Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, Mr. Mamdani said, “Standing before you, I remember the words of Jawaharlal Nehru. 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.”

In the Mamdani moment, Srinivasan Ramani sees the growing appeal of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and how the political movement went from strength to strength, to transcend niche activism and achieve mainstream electoral viability. Do read his weekend profile here.

We also asked noted American political theorist Corey Robin to unpack this moment for our readers and viewers. Prof. Robin traced Mr. Mamdani’s victory to the “Nevada moment”, when Bernie Sanders on the Democratic Party primaries there in 2020. Read and watch the interview here.

Our Diplomatic Affairs Editor Suhasini Haidar spoke to Milan Vaishnav, the director of the South Asia Programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to understand voting trends among Indian Americans. The victory of Mr. Mamdani and other Indian-American candidates may mark a return of votes from some of the diaspora, especially young men, who had shifted their support to Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2024, he tells her in this interview.

Also watch the latest episode of Worldview: How will Zohran Mamdani’s win impact India and Trump?

Top five stories we are reading this week:

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3. Vasudevan Mukunth writes on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO)
4. Forgotten men: Suhasini Haidar tells us the story of two peacemakers and their ideas of the world
5. Agents of death: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces – Stanly Johny profiles Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which seized El-Fasher late last month, is accused of committing war crimes

Published – November 10, 2025 02:34 pm IST