New York has chosen its millennial mayor. More importantly, it has chosen an Indian-origin Muslim immigrant, Zohran Kwame Mamdani. As clubs and bars across the city were brimming with people, as friends came to watch the results together, emotions were palpable on Tuesday night. And finally, as the race was called, he gave a speech quoting none other than Pandit Nehru and played “Dhoom Machale” as his outro. 

As he stood on the podium, brimming with emotions, he said, “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight led by an immigrant,” to a roaring room of his fans and followers, people who showed up for this historic night in Brooklyn at one of his campaign watch parties. 

This win was never guaranteed. It was a long journey before he got there. 

“India is near and dear to my heart,” he told me during one of his campaign trail interviews before the primaries. “I will be proud to be the first immigrant mayor in generations of our city, and I will be prouder to be the first Indian American mayor of this city, and yet more important than who I'll be is what I'll do.”

Twenty days prior to the democratic primaries in New York, a viral reel with Bollywood references from the angry young man Amitabh Bachchan’s now immortal dialogue from Deewar broke the internet. The youngest candidate in the fray, Mamdani sent his pitch to the voters loud and clear: It’s all about people power. 

Unlike in India, in New York people still mail, and mailboxes were stuffed with mayoral mailers from Andrew Cuomo and Brad Lander. A new flyer dropped on June 11, screaming “Reject Zohran Mamdani” with his face splashed across it. Then came a distorted list of Mamdani’s plans versus Cuomo’s polished promises, a pamphlet that came from Cuomo’s camp. 

But Mamdani’s campaign, pulsing with grassroots energy, was hard to miss.

‘Zohran for New York City’

The son of Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, he was born in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to the US as a child. Now a New York State assemblyman from Astoria, Queens, a neighbourhood known for its multicultural immigrant population, Mamdani had been carving out space in public life on his own terms.

A story that Mamdani likes to tell in every meeting, the story of the underdog, of coming from the back and trying to win the race, full Bollywood style, is of that day when he remembers sitting in a coffee shop in Astoria and being shown a poll. 

“The bar graph started around 40 percent,” the person told him. “Keep looking, and all the way at the end, we were at 1 percent.” Every time he said this, there were loud laughs in the room. Mamdani said, “I want to tax the 1 percent, not be at 1 percent.” His campaign team asked him if he still wanted to do this, if he was sure after he saw the early polls. But he insisted that “what we have shown is that we can also create a path.”

His mother’s movies often touched upon racial identities, of navigating America as an immigrant – like The Namesake, of Gogol trying to fit into a Boston neighbourhood. Before diving into politics, Mamdani assisted his mom and also released a song under his pen name “Mr Cardamom” called Nani. In fact, at one of his events to discuss antitrust issues in the city of New York, in an inter faith church with pride flags in West Village, a middle-aged man who identified himself as Zack walked up to me and claimed that Nair and Mamdani shot some scenes of The Reluctant Fundamentalist in his apartment in Atlanta a few years ago. He was in New York and wanted to see how Mamdani had evolved into his own, not just an assistant on his mom’s movie set.

Storytelling, it seems, didn’t just stay confined to the movie sets he once assisted on. From viral reels and podcast interviews to block parties and street canvasses, his signature purple and yellow campaign signs echoed New York's own visual language – subway lines, bodega signs, yellow cabs. His Hindi reel inspired by Amitabh Bachchan cult Deewar resonated widely with South Asian voters. “There are many New Yorkers who know the words by heart,” Mamdani said with a grin. “Who doesn’t know, ‘Mere paas maa hai!’”

Immigration has been a hot-button issue. Tourists are shying away from visiting the Big Apple. But Mamdani said, “I’ll defend our sanctuary city laws – laws that have kept New Yorkers safe for decades and were once backed by both parties, before Eric Adams started fear-mongering…Trump’s attacks on immigrants aren’t just political – they strike at the heart of our city, our economy, and who we are.”

He pointed out the city already lost billions in tourism and warned that next summer, when NYC hosts the World Cup, should be historic. But right now, “we don’t even know if people will feel safe coming here.” 

Mamdani vouched that he will make it his job to show the world that the pulsating heart of the Big Apple will always beat for the immigrants “where 40 percent of us were born abroad, and where everyone is welcome.”

The city is too expensive. So Mamdani wanted to freeze rent, bring back fare-free buses (a pilot he launched in 2023 but couldn’t sustain), create a Department of Community Safety focused on mental health, offer free childcare, build city-owned grocery stores, and raise corporate taxes to match New Jersey’s 11.5 percent, generating $5 billion. And he said he is going after the top 1 percent – those earning over $1 million – with a flat 2 percent city tax.

“The campaign started as an effort to shift the field left and build a base that could last beyond this race,” said Akash Mehta, co-founder and editor-in-chief of New York Focus, a local newsroom that hosted a debate with three mayoral candidates along with Hell Gate before the primaries. Mehta born and raised in New York knows that the young and affluent are all behind Mamdani. 

What the exit polls show

A look at exit poll shows, Morningside Heights, which is where Columbia University is located, came in full force for Mamdani. While New York City is blue, the race came close post the primaries as Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani during democratic primaries, ran independently. Backed by billionaires and even President Trump, Cuomo managed to gross votes from Staten Island, some parts of Queens and Brooklyn. 

Ellyn Marshall, an 80-year-old resident of Washington Heights, said she and most of her friends were voting for Cuomo because of the familiarity. “He did a lot for the city as the governor, and I think he is the best candidate despite the accusations,” said Marshall. She said the biggest thing he did was clean up the streets and subways in terms of crime. “Just based on his prior actions, he has proven himself.”

But the financial district came through for Mamdani. 

Mehta said that even some within democratic party didn’t endorse Mamdani early on, thinking the campaign would be a distraction. “He surpassed everyone’s expectations and became a social phenomenon.” Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied for him.

On economic policy, Mamdani is sharply critical of Trump-era trade chaos. “I’ve heard from many small business owners frustrated by Trump’s chaotic trade policies – they can’t predict costs like they used to,” he said, promising to cut city fines and fees by 50 percent, invest in small business support, and appoint a “mom-and-pop czar”.

Nationally, Mamdani added, “Trump ran on a stronger economy, cheaper groceries, and a more affordable life, and persecuting his political enemies. He’s failed on the first three and gone all in on the fourth.”

Record turnout

Mamdani also forced people to come out of their homes and vote. 

New York City recorded its largest voter turnout in fifty years. Traditionally mayoral elections draw fewer voters, mostly older, college-educated, and more so from Manhattan and Brooklyn. But this time, the city voted early and in numbers. 

When Mamdani launched his mayoral bid last October, progressive groups knew they couldn’t afford another fractured race like 2021. This time, they united early. 

Organisations rooted in working-class Black, Latino, East and South Asian neighborhoods – CAAAV, DRUM Beats, New York Communities for Change – threw their weight behind him. Mamdani went to gay bars and to parades. He walked across all neighborhoods and went to churches and temples alike. During a South Asian community members' dinner in Jackson Heights, a neighbourhood alive with memories of the subcontinent, people lined up to take pictures with him. 

His smile was contagious, his suits absolutely millennial. An immigrant has now risen, and with him, the hopes of a million other immigrants.  

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