CHICAGO: Zohran Mamdani’s well-known anti-Semitism and socialist credentials aren’t the only aspects of his character. What is less widely known is his alleged “hateful” attitudes towards Hindus. This attitude is despite his Hindu-Muslim mixed-faith ancestry.
Zohran Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, was born to Hindu parents in India. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, born into a Muslim family, is a Mumbai, India-born Ugandan national. Mr Mamdani, the Democrat Party’s nominee for the New York City mayoral election in November, has been the toast of the liberal-progressive-socialist crowd after his stunning victory against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democrat primary. Mr Mamdani will face Eric Adams, a sitting mayor and a former Democrat who is now running as an independent, in the November election.
As a dedicated member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mr Mamdani’s political affiliations carry significant weight. The organization’s platform, which he supports, advocates for radical changes, including “defunding the police,” “social ownership” of key industries and infrastructure, and taxing the wealthy. He also believes, à la the socialist Senator from Vermont, that “billionairs should not exist.”
In August 2022, a video surfaced on social media showing Mr Mamdani leading a hostile crowd in Times Square, targeting the Hindu community. The mob, consisting of Khalistani separatists, was heard shouting, “Who are the Hindus? Harami (Bastards, in Hindi and other Indian languages),” a dehumanizing slur. Despite the offensive nature of the chants around him, Mr Mamdani continued, showing a shocking level of disregard for the Hindu community. Khalistani separatists have a history of vandalizing and desecrating Hindu temples in the US, as well as the Indian consulate office in San Francisco.
But one of the most significant signs of Mr Mamdani’s anti-Hindu bigotry emerged in January 2024, when he co-organized and supported New York City protests that denounced the consecration of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya, India, labelling it “Hindutva extremism.” The temple, sacred to Hindus as Bhagwan Ram’s birthplace, was criticized at the protest not only as a political symbol but also condemned as a manifestation of “fascism,” linking Hindu religious aspirations to violent majoritarianism. Mr Mamdani accused the Ram Mandir inauguration of being a “celebration of the destruction of a mosque” and a “tool of oppression.”
Bhagwan Ram is one of the most revered deities among over a billion Hindus worldwide. Following the general pattern of Islamic invasions of the Indian subcontinent, the original temple, which had stood for a long time and was believed by the faithful to be the birthplace of Bhagwan Ram, was destroyed 500 years ago by an Islamic ruler. A mosque was subsequently built in its place. Hindus fought a century-long legal battle, dating back to British rule, to reclaim the sacred site and rebuild the temple. Such reclaiming is not new, as many societies have reclaimed their holy places.
There are several other examples of Mr Mamdani’s public gestures that Hindus find troublesome, including his take on India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The Act allows for fast-tracking the citizenship process for persecuted minorities of the neighbouring Islamic republics of India that were part of undivided subcontinental India before 1947. But Mr Mamdani claimed in a X post in 2020 that the Act was “an attempt to strip Muslims of their citizenship.”
Mr Mamdani also called the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, a “war criminal,” blaming him for the death of Muslims in India’s Gujarat during the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots, where Mr Modi was the Chief Minister then. Mr Mamdani has never acknowledged the fact that the riots were triggered when the Muslim mob torched an entire train car full of Hindu pilgrims, including women and children, resulting in the harrowing death of over 50 people. Most of the victims were charred beyond recognition. Of about 1,000 people who died during the riots, 254 were Hindus, including those killed by police bullets, a fact reiterated by the esteemed Columbia University scholars Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, in their letter to the Economist editor. Mr Mamdani has never expressed remorse for the death of Hindus in the Gujarat riots. India’s highest court, the Supreme Court of India, has absolved Mr Modi of all wrongdoing.
Mamdani’s claim that there are no more Muslims in India’s Gujarat due to a “mass slaughter” is blatantly false and part of the pattern that builds on the consciously crafted false narrative that India’s Hindu majority is an intolerant religious bigot. In reality, there are about 8 million Muslims in Gujarat, 200 million in India. Additionally, surveys after surveys have consistently shown India to be one of the most spiritual and tolerant societies, mainly due to its Hindu majority. It is crucial to debunk such misinformation to ensure the audience is well-informed and not misled by false narratives.
Before one brushes off these charges of Mr Mamdani’s subtle biases against Hindus, it is imperative to understand that anti-Hindu biases, in media, academia, and popular culture, have been normalized, due to etic narrative building against India and Hindus, to the extent that one needs a specialized skillset to sense them. Such normalization has rendered these biases largely subconscious. One does not recognize these biases unless confronted by a politically and intellectually aware individual in the Hindu rights movement. Even then, people double down with accusations such as “Hindutva,” “Hindu right,” “Hindu supremacist,” etc., rather than accept and amend their behaviour.
Anti-Hindu groups and individuals, including Mr Mamdani, have often used the Hindutva moniker as a smokescreen to “instrumentalize,” according to philosophers Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, “real pain and suffering” on Hindus who violate secular dogmas against the Hindu faith.
Mr Mamdani’s support for “Globalize Intifad” is a significant reminder to the Kashmiri Hindu consciousness that has experienced genocide, displacement, and civilizational erasure at the hands of Islamists.
Additionally, publicly berating India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his political party Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP), and its ideological fountainhead the RSS, the largest volunteer organization in the world, as anti-minority right-wing fascists without any concrete of evidence, is part of the left-progressive consensus that has no political costs to it in the US. Mamdani used the terms “war criminal” and “mass slaughter of Muslims” for Mr Modi, but his vision suggests something else. Mamdani’s proxies have tried to frame this solely as “criticism of Modi.” Still, it is more the intent that is politically bent and reflects a deeper anti-Hindu propaganda, which he often hides behind his shared Hindu ancestry.
Mr Mamdani’s parents are progressive, faith agnostic, but Mr Mamdani is a confessed Muslim. We also chose to marry someone from the Islamic faith at an Islamic religious ceremony. All this cannot be ignored, considering the history of the grisly Islamic colonization of the Indian subcontinent and the Partition (yes, it is always with a capital P for most Indians) of India.
