Meandering in the Populist Storm

With global megacities cracking under inequality, the "underclass" from the cities is struggling to reclaim its voice—creating a breeding ground for populism as passport to power; writes Sachin Shridhar

- Sachin Shridhar

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old unknown kid on the block, has shocked Americans—Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan New Yorkers alike—by defeating heavyweight Mayor Andrew Cuomo to move ahead in the Democratic primaries. Mamdani started out at the bottom, and today, here he is—with, let us say, the best chance to become Mayor of the richest city in America.

To give you an idea of scale and put things in perspective: the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has a budget of Rs 17,000 crore and is by far the richest local body in India. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has a budget of Rs 74,000 crore. Now compare that with New York—should Mamdani become the Mayor, he will be controlling a budget of Rs 9,93,000 crore (USD 116 billion), which is 13 times that of BMC and a whopping 58 times that of our National Capital!

Mamdani catapulted this far by promising free bus rides to New Yorkers, taxing rich white Americans, running state-managed grocery stores to make daily needs affordable, freezing upward rent revisions on apartments, creating a Social Housing Development Agency (much like our infamous DDA), and eliminating tuition fees in public schools. Doesn't the script look familiar? It appears he has stolen it straight from the playbook of our AAP and tweaked it for the needs of New York.