The TOI correspondent from Washington: India and Pakistan may have issues at their border, but progeny of the subcontinent have no problem leaving the baggage behind. In a striking choice, New York City’s mayor-elect, Uganda-born Indian-American Zohran Kwame Mamdani picked UK-born Pakistani-American Lina Maliha Khan to co-chair an all-women transition team as he prepares to govern the world’s richest city with socialist zeal, pitted against a hostile US establishment. Despite his historic win – or perhaps because of it– Mamdani has come under fire from Washington DC straightaway, with an angry president Trump churlishly referring to him as “whatever the hell his name is” and calling him a “100% communist lunatic.”
Addressing the America Business Forum Miami in Florida on Wednesday, a day after Mamdani, a self-described Democratic socialist, was elected as New York City’s first Muslim and Indian-origin mayor, Trump suggested the United States had “lost a little bit of its sovereignty” in the Big Apple, but pledged “we will take care of it…don’t worry.”Trump has made it clear that he is going to choke to the maximum extent possible federal finances to his former city that has the world’s largest municipal budget (approximately $ 112 billion, larger than that of Uttar Pradesh or Maharashtra) in 2024. The city depends on state and federal funding for about 25 percent of its budget, with 75 percent coming from local taxes and revenues. “He should be very nice to me… I’m the one that sort of has to approve a lot of things coming to him. So he’s off to a bad start,” the US president told Fox News, describing Mamdani’s victory speech as “very angry” amid reports that he himself was angry about the Republican rout across the country. Faced with the prospect of a funding squeeze, Mamdani, who is 34 and will take office on January 1, has lined up a high-profile all-women transition team with strong resumes to offset criticism that he lacks the nous to administer what is still the world’s #1 city although it has lost some of its gloss. Lina Khan, a progressive lawyer who led the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the Biden administration and struck fear in corporate America with her monopoly-busting crusade before resigning when Trump was elected, is the most conspicuous choice to carry out his affordability agenda that includes pledges like free buses, rent freeze and city-run grocery stores. Mamdani has said he would pay for those, in part, by raising taxes on the wealthy and businesses.Khan, 36, has progressively gravitated towards the liberal left in recent months, appearing at political events with socialist lawmakers like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I think what we saw last night was New Yorkers not just electing a new mayor but clearly rejecting politics where outsized corporate power and money too often end up dictating our politics,” she said at Mamdani’s victory rally, lashing out at “corrupt oligarchs” and “robber barons” in what Washington elites see as a warning sign for the Big Apple’s affluent class. Trump himself suggested that Miami, where he was speaking on Wednesday night, could soon become a “refuge for those fleeing communism in New York,” even as several media outlets reported an uptick in real estate inquiries in Florida from wealthy New Yorkers. The city has the most number of millionaires in the world (about 350,000), but wealth distribution is skewed, with per capita income in Manhattan (which is about 50 per cent white) more than double that of the Bronx (only 9 percent white). Queens, where Mamdani lives (and also where Trump grew up before moving to Manhattan) is home to over 60% of the South Asian population in New York City, with big concentration in neighborhoods like Jackson Heights (dubbed Jaikishan Heights), Elmhurst, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park.The prospect of a India-Pakistan Muslim “jodi” – although both were born outside the subcontinent – governing NYC has triggered wild reaction from the MAGA constituency, which sees them as immigrants who ought to be deported, even as the president himself suggests the Big Apple has fallen to outsiders. One meme from the far right showed an airplane with the name MAMDANI emblazoned across it…heading towards a skyscraper.
