In 2020, Zohran Mamdani had re-tweeted the CPM’s announcement about its 21-year-old member Arya Rajendran having become Thiruvananthapuram mayor, and suggested New York needed a mayor like her.
Five years on, many Indian netizens are asserting that their country needs a leader like Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic mayoral candidate for New York.
“I want for India what’s happening for NYC. Idk how it will happen but totally manifesting a Zohran Mamdani for our country,” wrote X user Sakshi Narula.
Her post was quoted by popular Indian X handle @DearthOfSid with a screenshot of Mamdani’s 2020 retweet of the CPM post on Arya.
“If you want a Zohran Mamdani for India, just vote for the Indian party he supports,” @DearthOfSid wrote.
Mamdani has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “war criminal” for the 2002 Gujarat riots and threatened to arrest Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
He has promised to cut rents, raise wages and tax the rich. His country’s President, Donald Trump, has in a post labelled him a “100% Communist Lunatic”.
Author and influencer Gurmehar Kaur posted on X: “Where is India’s Zohran Mamdani? Progressive. Pro-Bahujan. Pro-reservation. Pro-caste census. Pro-Palestine. Vocal. Inclusive. Democratic Socialist. He’s been right here all along but RW brainwashing made us ignore him. Rahul Gandhi has been speaking loud and clear on all of this with great conviction and courage for years.”
Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi, however, tweeted: “When Zohran Mamdani opens his mouth, Pakistan’s PR team takes the day off. India doesn’t need enemies with ‘allies’ like him shouting fiction from New York.”
Several Right-wing commentators have shared a video showing Mamdani at a Times Square protest in 2020 against the building of the Ram temple at the site where the Babri Masjid was razed by zealots. Flags of “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” are seen in the background.
BJP parliamentarian and actress Kangana Ranaut posted on X: “His mother is Mira Nair, one of our best filmmakers, Padmashri, a beloved and celebrated daughter born and raised in great Bharat based in Newyork, she married Mehmood Mamdani (Gujarati origin) a celebrated author, and obviously son is named Zohran, he sounds more Pakistani than Indian… whatever happened to his Hindu identity or bloodline and now he is ready to wipe out Hinduism, wow!!”
At an event on May 15, Mamdani and other mayoral candidates were asked whether they would do a joint news conference with Modi if he visited the city. They all declined.
Mamdani said: “My father, his family comes from Gujarat, in India. His family is Muslim, and I’m Muslim. Narendra Modi helped to orchestrate what was a mass slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat to the extent that we don’t even believe there are Gujarati Muslims any more. When I tell someone that I am, it’s a shock to them.”
He went on to call Modi a “war criminal”.
In 2023, Mamdani read out on stage an open letter in support of Indian activist Umar Khalid, in jail without trial since 2020.
Mamdani has faced a wave of social media posts calling him a “jehadi” and saying he would cause “the next 9/11”. Many of these are from handles with Indian names.
AAP functionary Akshay Marathe posted on X: “Zohran Mamdani is of Indian-origin. Yet, out of sheer Islamophobia, Hindu groups in NYC campaigned hard against him. Now he’s going to be Mayor and these groups lost a chance to have a friend in City Hall. The bigotry of Hindus is going to be their undoing in India and abroad.”
