Zoharan Mamdani has been making headlines for this successful win in the Democratic primary for the New York city mayor. His Indian-origin and birth in Uganda has also been the focus of discussions. Despite belonging to different ends of political spectrum, a common thread has come to fore between Mamdani and first India-American FBI director Kash Patel. The Republican intelligence bureau’s director was US President Donald Trump’s pick for the position.
Besides their Indian-origins, both Mamdani and Patel were born in Uganda. According to reports and self-declaration, their fathers were subject to anti-India ethnic cleansing during Ugandian dictator Idi Amin’s rule in the 1970s. While speaking to a Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing to be the FBI Director back in January, Patel said his father fled Amin’s genocidal dictatorship in Uganda, where 3,00,000 people were killed based on their ethnicity “just because they happened to look like me”.
Mamdani’s father Mahmood Mamdani was also expelled in 1972 by Amin because of his Indian ethnicity. Ugandan-born political theorist, senior Mamdani was “one of Africa’s most influential scholars on colonialism and postcolonial governance”, according to Paris-based magazine The Africa Report.
Political storm grows after Mamdani’s victory
Republicans unleashed fierce criticism after progressive Democrat Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. They labelled him a radical threat to the party’s future.
Republican Vice President JD Vance congratulated Mamdani on social media as the “new leader of the Democratic Party”, while the GOP’s congressional campaign arm branded him an “antisemitic socialist radical”.
President Trump joined the attacks on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social, “It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary and is on his way to becoming Mayor.”
Mamdani, a New York State Assembly member and Democratic Socialist, has campaigned on an unapologetically progressive platform that includes expanding public housing, redistributing wealth and making all city buses free by 2027.