{"id":29739,"date":"2025-11-05T17:23:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/29739\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T17:23:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T17:23:17","slug":"badhai-in-india-a-celebration-for-zohran-mamdanis-new-york-mayoral-win-and-his-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/29739\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Badhai!’ In India, a celebration for Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral win and his roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI — NEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 Indians<\/a> lit up social media on Wednesday to celebrate Zohran Mamdani\u2019s election win<\/a> as New York City mayor after he thanked his Indian-born parents, quoted a historic speech by India\u2019s first prime minister and turned the victory rally<\/a> into a Bollywood-style street party.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are proud of him. He has done a great job,\u201d Mamdani\u2019s maternal uncle Vikram Nair told The Associated Press. He said he was flooded with requests from friends and families to throw celebratory parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will plan it soon,\u201d he said, adding that the family would love to have Mamdani take part.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old, Ugandan-born<\/a> Mamdani is set to be New York\u2019s youngest mayor in more than a century \u2014 and the first Muslim one \u2014 when he takes office on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

At a boisterous victory rally late Tuesday, Mamdani addressed supporters with a speech inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru\u2019s iconic \u201cTryst with Destiny\u201d address, delivered on the eve of India\u2019s independence in 1947.<\/p>\n

\u201cStanding before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: \u2018A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.\u2019 Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

The title track of 2004 Bollywood blockbuster “Dhoom\u201d played as Mamdani concluded his speech, flanked by his parents and wife Rama Duwaji.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning Indian filmmaker whose credits include \u201cMonsoon Wedding,” \u201cThe Namesake\u201d and \u201cMississippi Masala\u201d and whose work has been nominated for an Academy Award. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia University.<\/p>\n

After his victory, Nair shared Bollywood film maker Zoya Akhtar\u2019s Instagram story that was captioned \u201cZohran you beauty,” with heart emojis.<\/p>\n

Winking references to his Indian heritage figured in Mamdani’s buzzy campaign videos, with many social media posts using dialogues from classic Bollywood movies.<\/p>\n

While there was no official Indian government reaction to Mamdani\u2019s win, Shashi Tharoor, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party, hailed his \u201cspectacular victory,\u201d calling it \u201cwonderfully apt!\u201d in his post on social media.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s multi-racial outreach<\/a> and embrace of his Indian and Muslim identity won him support, but his past remarks about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he publicly called a \u201cwar criminal,\u201d had many expressing concern and anger.<\/p>\n

Rights groups have accused Modi\u2019s government of widespread attacks and discrimination against India\u2019s Muslims and other minorities. As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi was accused of not acting to stop communal violence during 2002 anti-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 people dead. An investigation approved by the Indian Supreme Court later absolved him.<\/p>\n

Not everyone in India was enthused Wednesday by Mamdani\u2019s historic win, which made headlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that season again, when India\u2019s self-proclaimed urban intelligentsia will obsess over Zohran Mamdani\u2019s New York mayoral win, yet have no clue who their own city\u2019s mayor is!,\u201d Indian lawmaker Milind Deora wrote on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI — NEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 Indians lit up social media on Wednesday to celebrate Zohran Mamdani\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18389,597,416,417,6211,9,11,10,87,4015,1076],"class_list":{"0":"post-29739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-18389","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-islam","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-social-media","18":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}