Meandering in the Populist Storm

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.

Well, to be fair, this trend of subsidising and distributing freebies is becoming more deeply entrenched, as it’s a good shortcut to electoral success. Academia tells us that in the long run, good economics also makes for good politics. But as the economist Lord Keynes famously said, “In the long run, we are all dead.” The reality is that the election must be won in a few weeks, and voters demand results in the next few days. No one is willing to wait for the so-called green shoots of good economics to appear and create their long-lasting benign effect. No government can thus shy away from these handouts, and if it does, it imperils its survival or electability.

No matter the nuances of the issue, we can, however, feel a sense of glee from the fact that the mighty Americans—who we were told were wedded to private enterprise and capitalism—are also on their way to becoming a handout nation. Mamdani is the son of a Muslim professor and a famous Hindu filmmaker mother, who grew up in Uganda and moved to New York when he was seven. He is not white, and certainly not a New Yorker in the traditional sense.

But there it is. He has Donald Trump seething with anger and calling him a “lunatic communist.” The President of the USA has even threatened that if Mamdani interferes with Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Government will arrest him. Most New Yorkers and Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—are befuddled, not knowing what hit them, or how to respond to this political quake.

The larger question that then arises is: why is the electorate going the way it is? If we see our cities—be it New York or New Delhi—the bulk of the city comprises poor migrants. They live on the outskirts, with housing for the poor and slums ever-growing. The living conditions are not great and certainly not getting any better. This city is only seen when people travel daily to the better laid-out and richer parts by public transport to do their menial to mundane jobs, which in the end give them a livelihood and certainly make our lives easier. What we forget is that, unseen as it may be, in terms of numbers, this part of the city is much larger than the main city. As any Delhi resident knows, without the workforce coming from nearby Lal Dora (urban villages), Jahangirpuris of the North, Govindpuris of the South, or Vinod Nagaris of the East, the wheels of Delhi would come to a halt.

But the worst part is that we all pretend this city either does not exist, or if it does, we do not talk about it. The city, to us, means cultural shows at Mandi House, book launches at the IIC, lunches at Khan Market, or shopping at Select City. The life of an average Manhattan resident today, in essence, is no different. The problems and aspirations of the majority of residents do not make for a pursuit worth talking about when we have many elite and fashionable ones to ponder over.

It is a neglected area, and clever politicians have spotted the opportunity in the electoral market. Whoever articulates it, laces it with promises, and gives it an anti-elite hue—wins. And when that happens, the elite respond with horror.

In large cities, there is a huge undercurrent of resentment and angst against the inequality, which seems to be always growing. There is a deep suspicion among the poor that the system is indifferent to their problems, and the rich simply do not care. When a poor commuter, crammed in his bus, sees swanky cars whizzing past him day after day—and most of what he sees or reads are grandiose announcements that do not affect him and which he scarcely understands—or worse still, all he reads is gossip about Bollywood or some fashion models—he becomes cynical enough to suspend his better judgement and sees nothing wrong in getting free electricity or a free bus ride.

He votes for whoever offers him the best bouquet of handouts. Can we really then blame the people for the way they vote? Or must we address what is fundamentally broken in our larger cityscapes?

Views expressed are personal