New Delhi: Zohran Mamdani, 34, celebrated his triumph as the new Mayor of New York City by invoking the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. Nehru made the iconic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech in 1947, after India’s independence from over 200 years of British rule.
“Standing before you, I’m reminded of Jawaharlal Nehru’s words. A moment 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. Tonight, New York has done just that”, said Mamdani, in front of the raucous crowd at his victory party.
His win carries significance beyond New York City, showing an ideological shift in urban politics. It highlights the growing political power of immigrants and working-class communities in multicultural democracies, like the United States.
And like Nehru’s speech, Mamdani’s campaign marked a rejection of establishment politics and a turn toward progressive, social agendas centred on issues like housing and transit. Issues that resonate with people across cities, from London to Mumbai.
He defeated Andrew Cuomo, former Governor of the State of New York, and Curtis Silwa in a highly publicised election. It was viewed by many as a referendum on the city’s widening inequality and the political establishment’s failure to address the cost-of-living crisis.
Mamdani—the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the largest city in the US—ran on a campaign of affordability, expanding public services for working-class New Yorkers and a rent freeze.
But his victory is especially significant in the broader political landscape of the US, where President Donald Trump is pursuing an aggressive anti-immigration policy. As the child of immigrants, Mamdani’s message to Trump and other Republicans was clear — New York is a global city, and immigrants are welcome.
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” said Mamdani.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh pointed out that the Scottish politician Alex Salmond had also borrowed from Nehru’s iconic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech in his campaign for the independence of Scotland in November 2013. He used this to evoke the spirit of a national turning point for Scotland, much like the one Nehru described for India.
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Not just a victory for multiculturalism
When Nehru delivered his speech, the British Empire’s dominance was fading. Former colonies across the world were winning independence, and Nehru saw India’s fight for freedom as an effort to liberate the nation’s soul from the chains imposed by colonial rule.
As a democratic socialist, Mamdani’s win went against the wave of right-wing nationalism that has swept across the world. He aggressively campaigned against Trump’s policies, even calling out the President’s threat to deport him.
“The clash that Mamdani’s victory sets up is not one of civilizations. Rather, it’s of competing visions of the world — one anchored in Trump’s angry nationalist project and the other in Mamdani’s global city,” said Ishaan Tharoor, a global affairs columnist at the Washington Post, on X.
Throughout his campaign, Mamdani courted immigrant voters from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. He ran multilingual ad campaigns, did the iconic Shah Rukh Khan pose and explained ranked voter choice through Bollywood movies.
However, his victory isn’t just viewed as a win of multiculturalism. It was also seen as a triumph of the majority working class over the ultrarich.
His campaign focused on smaller, grassroot donations from everyday New Yorkers. He also campaigned for increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1 per cent of the city’s residents. In comparison, Cuomo — who was also endorsed by Trump — raised millions from billionaire donors, like former mayor Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)