Insiyah Vahanvaty is a socio-political writer, commentator and scholar. She is the author of The Fearless Judge: The Life and Times of Justice A. M. Ahmadi and co-authors a fortnightly column for the Hindustan Times on constitutional debates and political life.
Zohran Mamdani should be India’s darling right now.
He’s young, bright, and has pulled off a stunning political victory in New York. The son of Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran embodies every quality that India usually adores in its diaspora: cosmopolitan, articulate, politically engaged, and unapologetically brown.
He also wears his Indian roots openly. He defends immigrants, eats biryani with his hands, and speaks about the moral weight of solidarity. After his New York mayoral victory, he invoked India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, quoting his legendary midnight Independence Day speech – and closed to the triumphant beats of Dhoom Macha le – a contemporary Bollywood hit film song.
He is, in every sense, unapologetically Indian-origin. By all usual diaspora metrics, India should be celebrating him. When Rishi Sunak became Britain’s Prime Minister, India basked in reflected glory, glossing over the racist politics of his party and lingering instead on his Hindu wedding rituals and temple visits. Newspapers and television channels crowned him the “son-in-law of India.” When Kamala Harris became U.S. Vice President, her Tamil roots and Chennai family recipes dominated primetime television coverage.
But with Mamdani? Crickets. Because Zohran Mamdani is the wrong kind of Indian. First – and perhaps most damning of all – he is Muslim. He speaks in support of Gaza and calls Israel’s actions genocidal at a time when India embraces the Israeli state. He said he would pursue the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli Prime Minister were to visit New York. He criticises Narendra Modi for divisive politics. He calls himself a democratic socialist, supports police reform, and frames politics in moral rather than nationalist terms.
In contemporary India, this combination is politically combustible. In a climate where politicians claim they can “spot criminals by their clothes,” silence is survival for minorities; visibility is risk. Today’s nationalism tolerates political engagement only when it comes without dissent. Citizens may belong, but only if they affirm the state’s narrative and remain silent on issues like communal violence, discriminatory laws, and divisive politics. Muslims may maintain their religious identity, but only if they apologize, defer, and ultimately accept majoritarian and hyper-nationalist agendas.
Mamdani violates every one of these conditions. He represents a modern, educated Muslim who is confident, visible, and unafraid. He refuses to downplay his religious identity or to tailor his politics for Indian approval. He speaks about his auntie wearing the hijab with the same ease as he speaks about meeting his wife on a dating app. In October 2025, during his campaign outside a Bronx mosque, he said, “The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker … And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that and be satisfied with whatever little we receive. No more.”
As Hindutva tightens its grip on India, Mamdani’s statements send ripples of anxiety. He unsettles because he demands equal treatment and refuses to fit the usual caricature that Muslims must either apologize or provoke alarm. In doing so, he has become the kind of Indian-origin figure many find impossible to digest today.
Critics aren’t outraged; they’re rattled by his refusal to play by the rules. And so India has been quick to turn its back. Political leaders have accused Mamdani of being anti-Hindu, disloyal to his heritage, even “more Pakistani than Indian.” BJP politicians publicly urged Indian-origin voters in New York to “think twice” before supporting him. But they forget that Mamdani is half Hindu. His mother, Mira Nair, a Hindu filmmaker and recipient of India’s third-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, is celebrated globally for bringing authentic Indian cultural narratives to the West. Her Indian-ness is artistic, emotional, and safely detached from contemporary power.
Zohran Mamdani’s Indian-ness, in contrast, is political, argumentative, and uncomfortable. In the end, the problem isn’t Mamdani — it’s the mirror he holds up. His politics are oddly nostalgic, drawing from constitutional ideals that once defined Indian selfhood: secularism, anti-colonialism with moral ambition, and citizenship not tethered to religious performance.
These liberal and pluralist ideas that were championed during the Independence struggle by Nehru, Ambedkar, and Tagore now sit uneasily in public debate – often criticized, distorted or villainised.
Yet those ideals remain embedded in the Constitution. They have not disappeared; they have simply fallen out of political favour. This is why Mamdani is the kind of Indian the country no longer knows how to love. And so, when this young man, who could have easily been the crown jewel of India’s diaspora narrative, takes his oath on January 1 as New York’s youngest-ever mayor, he will not be embraced at home. And that says far more about us than it does about him.
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