Zohran Mamdani, years before his New York City mayoral election victory, spoke at a 2023 ‘Howdy, Democracy?!’ event in New York ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s White House visit.
At the event, Mamdani read a letter from jailed JNU scholar Umar Khalid’s prison diary.
“I’m going to be reading a letter from Umar Khalid, who is a scholar and a former student activist at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi…who organised a campaign against lynching and hate. He has been in jail for more than 1,000 days under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and has yet to face trial, though his bail application has been repeatedly denied. He has also faced an assassination attempt,” Mamdani told the audience.
The event, on the state of democracy and civil liberties in India, was held days before Prime Minister Modi’s high-profile visit to Washington DC in June 2023.
The now–New York City mayor-elect, who is of Gujarati origin, faced backlash for comparing Modi to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a separate event earlier this year.
When asked if he would support a joint appearance with Modi during the Indian leader’s Madison Square Garden rally, Mamdani referenced the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Umar Khalid was arrested in September 2020 for allegedly delivering inflammatory speeches and being part of a conspiracy linked to the 2020 Delhi riots. His bail plea, rejected twice by both the trial court and the Delhi High Court, is being heard in the Supreme Court on Thursday.