The disruptor redefining Trump-era politics

Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City mayoral elections is disruptive at multiple levels—he’s a 34-year-old Uganda-born, Indian-origin Muslim immigrant.

Yet there’s irony in the fact that he is set to become the youngest mayor of a city still bearing the deep scars of 9/11.

For another, it’s Trump territory. The US President, who made his mark as a real estate baron in NYC, wants to curb immigration. Mamdani is the son of immigrants and married to an immigrant.

When Mamdani entered the mayoral race in 2024, he was an unknown candidate with limited financial resources and no institutional backing. That alone makes his win over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa remarkable.

But there’s more.

Mamdani is charismatic—a natural on social media.

His role model is said to be former US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. His ethnicity reflects the growing diversity within the Democratic Party. He doesn’t shy away from political fights either—he delivered a fiery vistory speech asking Trump to “turn the volume up”. He even declared: “New York will remain a city of immigrants—a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”

Trump, on the other hand, has labelled Mamdani an extremist, a communist, and a danger to New York City.

Mamdani has proudly espoused left-wing causes, including free childcare, expanded public transportation, and increased government intervention in free-market systems. Most importantly, he is unapologetic about it.

For many in the Democratic Party, he represents the answer to the Trump phenomenon.

In his victory speech, he also quoted from India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous “Tryst with Destiny” address, before closing with the Bollywood number Dhoom Machale, the title track of the 2004 hit Dhoom. The choices that reflected his South Asian heritage: His mother, noted filmmaker Mira Nair, and his father, Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-born academic of Indian origin.

How Mamdani manages the #TrumpChallenge after taking the oath on 1 January could well determine his political future.

Meanwhile, he has joined the ranks of Indian-origin leaders who have reached top political offices abroad. In the US, Kamala Harris served as vice president under Joe Biden and was Trump’s Democratic challenger in the 2024 elections. Republicans Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley are also well known. Across the Atlantic, there’s Rishi Sunak, former British prime minister, and Leo Varadkar, former prime minister of Ireland.

Interestingly, two other Indian-origin Americans were also elected to office this week. Hyderabad-born Senator Ghazala Hashmi won the polls to become lieutenant governor of Virginia, the first Muslim American woman elected to statewide office in the US. Meanwhile, Aftab Pureval saw off a challenge from US vice president J.D. Vance’s half-brother, Cory Bowman, to win re-election as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Ordinarily, India might have been quick to congratulate NYC’s mayor-elect. But with New Delhi’s ties with Trump on a slippery slope—no trade deal yet, Trump’s claims of intervening in the India-Pakistan skirmish in May, and warnings over buying discounted Russian oil—the country may be playing it safe. After all, there’s no love lost between the Democrats and Trump.

However, the disruption his win has caused was felt even at home. Ameet Satam, the chief of Mumbai Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reportedly warned that if “anyone tries to impose a ‘Khan’ on Mumbai, it will not be tolerated! Wake up, Mumbaikars!”

Former speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has announced her retirement, bringing the curtain down on a decades-long career. She represented California and, over the years, became one of the most powerful women in American politics.

In a video message, she said she would not seek re-election to Congress when her term ends in January 2027.

Pelosi, 85, was the first woman to serve as the speaker of the House and led her party in the lower chamber of Congress from 2003 to 2023. Given that she presided over two impeachment motions against Trump, the US president made it clear he was more than thrilled to see her go. He called her “evil”, “corrupt”, and “only focused on bad things for our country”. He added that her retirement was “a great thing for America”.

“I’m very honoured she impeached me twice and failed miserably twice,” Trump told Fox News. “Nancy Pelosi is a highly overrated politician.”

In the race for Pelosi’s seat are California state senator Scott Wiener and Indian-origin Saikat Chakrabarti, a former top aide to Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a multimillionaire founding engineer at Stripe.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has warned that China will surpass the US in the AI race.

“China is going to win the AI race,” Huang told the Financial Times on the sidelines of its Future of AI Summit. “It’s vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide,” he added.

The comments follow an October meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. After the meeting, Trump had told reporters that the US would allow Nvidia to sell some chips to China, though not its most advanced Blackwell models.

China’s access to cutting-edge AI chips, particularly those produced by the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization, remains a key point of contention as the world’s two largest economies vie for dominance in AI and high-performance computing.

A 17-year-old student has emerged as the main suspect behind two explosions at a mosque in Jakarta this week. The blasts injured 55 people, mostly students, during Friday prayers at a mosque located inside a school complex.

Police recovered what they later described as a “toy weapon” at the scene, bearing some inscriptions. Authorities dismissed early speculation that the incident was a terror attack, saying investigations were on.

Indonesia has a history of attacks on churches and Western targets, but rarely on mosques. Islamist militancy in the country has largely been suppressed.

Elizabeth Roche is an associate professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana.