‘Sadda beta’ Zohran has pushed the envelope

INDIA has taken to Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York in a “sadda beta” kind of way, giving him the kind of media love reserved for biggies like Shah Rukh Khan. It’s not just his unabashed grin or the viral video which shows him eating biryani (with his fingers) or the fact that he wears his left-wing politics on his sleeve (read, Palestine). In the last 72 hours, reports of people googling “democratic socialism” has increased by leaps and bounds.

It helps, of course, that Zohran’s parents are of Indian origin — Mira Nair, the girl from Amritsar, also studied at Tara Hall in Shimla; his father, Mahmood Mamdani, a Gujarati Khoja (Shia) Muslim — whose own diasporic parents were born and raised in Tanganyika in east Africa — grew up in Kampala, Uganda. The languages spoken in the Nair-Mamdani household, besides English, are Punjabi, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati and Swahili.

On stage in New York, as he celebrated his victory earlier this week, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Mamdani household was the newest advertisement for the United Colours of Benetton — besides his parents, Zohran was flanked by his wife, Rama Duwaji, a girl of Syrian descent, whom he met on the dating app Hinge — they celebrated their nikaah a year ago in Dubai.

For one moment, amidst the madness of Trump, America had redeemed itself. “Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” say the first lines from the 1883 Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. A multi-coloured family had broken through the bipolar White-Black politics of America and made it their own. (It helped that 40 per cent of New York’s population is immigrant.)

That’s why it’s interesting that the Indian media, divided down the middle just like the rest of the country, made Zohran Mamdani’s victory its own this week. It wasn’t just about the Dhoom Machale song, although that helped. It was about the fact that for a few tremulous hours one half of India recognised itself in that victory.

This is the half that has grown up on Jawaharlal Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech, which Zohran quoted at the beginning of his own. It continues to believe that the idea of New York — energetic and vibrant and messy and authentic — could still be the idea of India, a little bit of this and that, welcoming immigrants, even as it accommodates people of all faiths and castes and creeds at home.

The other half is viscerally critical of Zohran because he is critical of PM Modi’s politics, in Gujarat and afterwards, believes that he promotes “bigotry and bias” against Hindus and vehemently disagrees with his views on Israel and Gaza — Mamdani believes Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, while India has hugely promoted the Israel relationship in the Modi years. (Ironically, and perhaps that is the role of irony, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was in India on the day New York voted in Mamdani.)

Naturally, not one member of Modi’s government has welcomed or congratulated Mamdani on his victory.

On the day New York went to vote, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rekha Sharma, former chairperson of the National Commission for Women, articulated the right-wing sentiment on X. “For this one I am with Mr Trump. People of Indian origin when you vote think twice. An Indian mother doesn’t make Mr Mamdani a well-wisher of India.”

It would be interesting to know how the pro-Modi Indian diaspora in New York voted — all those who gatecrash the PM’s public appearances, were they for or against Mamdani? If they voted in favour, what does this do to the Modi government’s diaspora policy with which it has been so intimately connected for decades?

For the first time in a long time, a powerful American of Indian origin so clearly represents the social-political cleavage back home. From domestic politics to foreign policy, Zohran’s victory is also emblematic of the disappearing idea of compromise that defined India’s decades in the aftermath of Partition — when you kept your own beliefs but also participated in someone else’s joy, even if you didn’t much care for that someone.

That’s why the Indian media’s momentary celebration of Mamdani is significant. For a few hours, the back-to-back coverage of the Bihar elections and the debate over Panjab University’s overhaul gave way to Dhoom Machale, the Bollywood song, some say, that is inspired by an Indonesian pop number — the perfect example of a khichri in filmi music, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

It is this idea of a khichri, when you throw everything into a melting pot and something that is more than dal and more than rice emerges to tickle your taste buds that joins New York with India — both spaces are defined by the art of ferment.

“Sadda beta” Zohran has pushed the envelope back home in New York — at 34, he doesn’t understand the meaning of fear. Here in Chandigarh, as this newspaper goes to bed, the news that Panjab University students have forced the Centre to withdraw its move to change the functioning of their University, echoes that absence of fear.

Move over, the young are saying. We are changing the old order, making it give way to the new. Democratic Socialist or simply democratic, our time has come.