Socialist Democrat

One of the most remarkable democratic developments of recent times came from New York City this month. A 33-year-old man of Indian origin won the Democratic Party nomination to run for the mayor of the city.

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The nomination is a sort of semifinal match, but because New York is a very Democratic Party-leaning city, he is the frontrunner and the likely winner of the election, which is later this year.

Zohran Mamdani is from a Gujarati Muslim family, and his father is a university academic who wrote a famous text after 11 September, 2001, titled ‘Good Muslim Bad Muslim’. Zohran’s mother is Mira Nair, the director of such movies as ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and ‘Salaam Bombay’. But his background is not the important part of Zohran’s story: it is the way in which he competed against and defeated a stalwart of his party, Andrew Cuomo, who was governor of New York state.

The development is important because New York’s mayor has serious powers. He oversees a budget of over $100 billion which is more than that of most countries. He appoints judges, the police commissioner, and heads of more than 40 city agencies and members of boards and commissions. The reason figures like Rudy Giuliani are famous is that they were in this position.