Random Musing: Why some Indian liberals are celebrating Zohran Mamdani — and think he is the new Obama

Time of India

5 days ago

Zohran Mamdani's elevation as the Democrats' New York Mayoral candidate was oddly reminiscent of
Daredevil: Born Again
, the brutal Netflix show retrofitted to fit into the Kevin Feige Marvel Cinematic Universe. Most aficionados consider the original
Daredevil
series to be one of the finest comic shows of all time, with gritty realism, Catholic guilt, a banging opening theme, and a main character who, despite being blind, always manages to hook up with the best-looking member of the opposite sex — making one wonder if that is his actual superpower.
It was, to quote Homelander, absolutely perfect.
While Born Again fails to hit the heights of the original, it's still better than most of the muck being passed off as content from Marvel (looking at you, Brave New World).
In the show, Wilson Fisk leaves behind a life of crime to become the Mayor of New York, while Matt Murdock hangs up his cowl and life mission to beat every villain to within an inch of his life to instead become a lawyer.
But if life teaches us one thing, it's that one can never rebel against one's basic programming — as Fisk slowly returns to his criminal ways and Murdock to his vigilante instincts.
What made the parallel uncanny was that Zohran Mamdani himself looked like he'd stepped out of that world. With his straggly-yet-cultivated beard and moody intensity, he almost resembles an ethnic Matt Murdock. And like Wilson Fisk, he wants to rule the city he loves but prefers viral TikTok reels to violence.
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While he has just become the Democratic nominee for now, his dismantling of the working corpse known as Andrew Cuomo has been celebrated with more gusto in the neighbourhoods of SoBo and DefCol than in the boroughs of New York.
One reason for the celebration is that his win — however unrelated to the upper-class anglicised elite of India — is seen as a sort of personal validation of their crypto-political stance. The ones whom stand-up comedian Varun Grover describes performing liberalism by buying a ukulele and learning how to play
Hum Dekhenge
.
Mamdani's ascent was immediately met with applause from the usual suspects, who couldn't name their own MLA with a gun to their head but are more bothered about who turns up on their Instagram reels. Some hailed his win (of a nomination, not as mayor) as a resounding symbol of multi-faith culturalism in Trumpian America, and a lesson India needed to learn — where apparently an 'inter-faith' kid could never come to power.
Despite India already having presidents, PMs, and VPs from every major faith. And in contrast, Britain and America, two very old democracies, have only had one non-white premier each.
Now why does this delusion exist. One hypothesis is that's because of two things:
The Higgins-Macaulay Complex
The
Obama
Delusion
The Higgins-Macaulay Complex
Mamdani's win is a testament to what one might call the Henry Higgins Delusion. While explaining to Eliza Doolittle the importance of speaking properly, Higgins claims:
'I know your head aches; I know you're tired; I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window.
But think what you're trying to accomplish. Think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it's the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer Eliza.
And conquer it you will.'
It's the same delusion of Lord Babington Macaulay who claimed: 'A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.'
That's why the proverbial progenitors of that legacy are derisively labelled Macaulayputra, a class of Indian who just look Indian but see the world through an Englishman's eyes, who believe that spoken English, when delivered with the correct polish and cadence, is god's gift to mankind.
For a while, this Western-educated class were the ones who had access to power, leading to the delusion that fluency in English was necessary for fluency in governance.
But while that currency has crashed, and knowing English is no proof of anything, other than the fact that you just know a language.
Slowly, post-liberalisation, and the rise of the new temples of modern India, like the IITs and IIMs, access to English no longer remained the preserve of the elite. However, the clipped accent still hung around, as did the delusion that it's an access to power.
They seek out eloquent figures in other countries and build them up as avatars of their lost relevance.
Mamdani fits this fantasy perfectly. He speaks the way they wish Indian voters rewarded. But they don't. Not anymore.
The Obama Delusion
The other reason for our liberal brethren finding meaning in election results across the world and not India is what one calls the Obama Delusion. There's no doubt that Barack Hussein Obama — an inter-faith kid and global citizen like Zohran Mamdani — was the last great charismatic liberal leader in the post-WWII order.
Of course, without Obama there would be no Trump but now with a lack of charismatic leaders who can marry the many contradictions of the liberal order, almost every politician is raised to an Obama-like profile.
The prognosis follows a simple trajectory:
Identify a slightly popular political leader. If you can't find one, rally around a cricketer or actor.
Build them up in your head to the point that you think they are Barack Obama, the patron saint of global liberals.
Project your own political helplessness into their lives, and believe that their wins are ours.
They have done enough of that in India, and often do that outside India. With politicians like Jacinda Ardern, Justin Trudeau, and Zohran Mamdani.
Of course, there's nothing wrong in that, and as Bertrand Russell explained in Power: A New Social Analysis, a follower follows a leader simply because they believe they imbibe the qualities of that leader.
And Mamdani is the new Obama (which he is) but not in the way my desi liberal brethren think.
Many Indian liberals have turned Mamdani into their favourite imported political fantasy — despite understanding neither New York nor Mamdani. Their reaction isn't rooted in ideology or data or even solidarity. It's based on projection. On aesthetic resonance.
Mamdani speaks English the way they wish a politician in India did — fluid, international, urbane.
He says 'housing justice' with the confidence of someone who's never said paani nahi aa raha. He makes snappy campaign reels. He speaks like a Substack, looks like a Sundance submission, and embodies everything Indian liberals have failed to find in a politician close home.
But if you scrape past the filters, things look very different.
As geneticist and blogger Razib Khan explained on X, Mamdani pulled an Obama by fusing wine-track whites immigrant Asians, much like Obama did with whites and black voters.
As another user, Armand Domalewski explained: 'It is funny that both Zohran's haters and his fans are deeply committed to the idea he won on the backs of a multiracial working-class coalition when his strongest soldiers were college-educated, $100k+ income white guys.'
In short, Mamdani didn't win because he's the face of the poor. He won because he's the algorithmic avatar of the liberal creative class. And that's precisely why Indian liberals love him.
They too have no real mass base. They too are deeply online. And they too long for a politics that is less about persuasion and more about aesthetic affirmation. Mamdani, to them, is aspirational — not ideologically, but socio-linguistically.
The irony, of course, is that Mamdani's politics, if implemented in India, would be dismissed by the same elite as 'economic illiteracy.' His ideas — rent freezes, free public buses, universal childcare, city-run grocery stores — would be mocked as communist nostalgia if proposed in Delhi.
But wrapped in New York branding and TikTok transitions, it becomes romantic. Revolutionary, even.
As economist and writer Noah Smith explains in a Substack post, the actual policy is economically brittle. Rent control would choke supply. City-run grocery stores are bureaucratic disasters waiting to happen.
Noah Smith's takedown of Mamdani's policies is worth quoting here. While Mamdani talks eloquently about 'outcomes,' 'abundance,' and 'efficiency,' the actual policy slate is economically brittle.
Rent control, Smith warns, will choke supply. City-run grocery stores are a bureaucratic disaster waiting to happen. The housing construction target of 200,000 units over 10 years is slower than past decades. Free childcare is noble but ruinously expensive. Free buses are politically popular but fiscally unsustainable. The vibe is Scandinavian. The budget is not.
Even his most reasonable rhetoric — about public excellence, innovation, and removing red tape — sounds eerily like classic technocrat-speak.
The kind that Indian liberals usually deride when it comes from NITI Aayog. But Mamdani wraps it in DSA branding and a postcolonial surname, and suddenly it becomes cool.
As for the Israel controversy — he's not the extremist his critics claim. But he's also not immune to strategic ambiguity.
His past defences of slogans like 'Globalise the Intifada' have hurt him, and his attempt to reframe the term as non-violent was — at best — intellectually dishonest.
It hasn't helped the Palestinians. It has fed into America's Jewish anxieties. It's a misstep, and one that could haunt his broader electability.
But none of this matters to his Indian fanbase. Because their politics isn't about consequences — it's about catharsis.
Mamdani may or may not become mayor. But in the mind of the Indian liberal elite, he already is. Not because he represents what they want for India — but because he reminds them of what India no longer wants from them.
Eloquence without mass support. Style without sweat. Surnames without soil.
But here's the rub.
Mamdani's rise says very little about America. And even less about India.
It says everything about a certain class of Indians who no longer matter — but still speak as if they do.
And like Daredevil: Born Again, the series doesn't end with a quiet retirement or a courtroom win — it ends with Murdock setting up an army. An underground network. A long war to come.
Time will tell how far Zohran Mamdani goes in American politics. At this point he's certainly more camera-friendly than Kamala Harris, whose vacillating accents and out-of-context cackle alienated both Indians and Blacks. Could he become Mayor? Probably, because New York is a uniquely left-of-centre city.
Meanwhile, MAGA stalwarts are having a laugh thinking that Mamdani's win shows the Democrats don't know what their party is anymore.
That may be true but they should remember one thing. In 2015, people used to laugh at Donald Trump as well.