On November 4, 2025, New York City made history with the election of Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor. At just 34 years old, Mamdani not only became the youngest mayor-elect of the city in over a century, but also the first Indian American and the first Muslim to hold the office, according to India.com and NDTV. His meteoric rise from a political newcomer polling at less than 1% at the beginning of the year to securing over 50% of the votes in a three-person race has sent ripples through the American political landscape.
Mamdani’s victory came amid a record voter turnout, with more than two million New Yorkers casting their ballots. He defeated two formidable opponents: independent candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who boasted support from both Donald Trump and Elon Musk—and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. The win was not just a personal triumph for Mamdani; it delivered a significant boost to Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as noted by India.com.
His election has also inspired a new generation of Indian-origin progressive leaders across the United States. Chief among them is Saikat Chakrabarti, whose campaign for the soon-to-be-vacant San Francisco congressional seat has drawn national attention. Chakrabarti’s candidacy gained momentum after longtime Democratic stalwart Nancy Pelosi announced on November 6, 2025, that she would not seek re-election. In a video address, Pelosi told her city, “San Francisco, know your power. We have made history and progress, and we must continue to lead the way.” Her departure marks the end of an era—she has held the seat since 1987—and sets the stage for a contest that could reshape the Democratic Party’s future.
Chakrabarti, the son of Bengali immigrants from Texas, represents a new wave of progressives aiming to reorient the party’s traditional structures. He is no stranger to political organizing. After earning a computer science degree from Harvard University, Chakrabarti moved to San Francisco, co-founded a tech startup, and joined Stripe as its second engineer. But by 2016, he left the tech world behind, joining Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and helping to build the digital tools that powered Sanders’ grassroots movement, as described by India.com and News18.
Chakrabarti’s political influence expanded as he co-founded Justice Democrats, a group dedicated to recruiting a new generation of congressional leaders. He played a pivotal role in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning 2018 House victory, later serving as her chief of staff and co-authoring the Green New Deal, a sweeping framework for tackling climate change and building a more equitable society. Today, he leads New Consensus, a policy think tank focused on economic security and prosperity, while remaining active in Bay Area non-profits.
The parallels between Mamdani and Chakrabarti are hard to miss. Both men are children of South Asian immigrants, both have leveraged social media and grassroots organizing to overcome well-funded opponents, and both have made bold progressive reforms central to their platforms. After Mamdani’s win, Chakrabarti tweeted, “Zohran proved it doesn’t matter how much money they throw at you. Organised people beat organised money if you stand for real change.”
Chakrabarti’s campaign for Congress is centered on affordability and structural reform. He advocates for zoning reform, cutting red tape, public financing, social housing, displacement protections, and controls on speculation. “The answer to housing has to be ‘all of the above,’ and Zohran gets that,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter). “We need to plan and build housing like infrastructure, because it is.”
Yet, the rise of these progressive Indian American leaders has not been without controversy. Mamdani, in particular, has faced sharp criticism from some members of the Indian American community and Jewish leaders. Writing for IndiaNews.com and NewsMax.com, commentator Partha Chakraborty expressed deep reservations about Mamdani’s worldview. He accused Mamdani of embodying “the worst temptations of antisemitism,” citing concerns that the mayor-elect does not believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsh of the World Union of Progressive Judaism commented, “Mayor-Elect Mamdani does not believe in coexistence… He believes that Israel has no right to exist at all as a Jewish state in any territory,” and added that Mamdani “does not hide it, to the contrary, he’s proud of it.”
Chakraborty’s critique did not stop there. He argued that Mamdani’s proudly socialist platform is at odds with the values that drew many Indian Americans to the United States in the first place—namely, a belief in meritocracy, individual agency, and the promise of the American dream. “Socialism lives on collective existence—you belong to, or not, not because of what you chose to do, but just because of the accident at birth,” Chakraborty wrote. He warned that Mamdani’s brand of populism could erode the sanctuary that New York City has long provided to its Jewish residents and undermine the city’s role as a global beacon of capitalism.
In his victory speech, Mamdani declared, “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” For his critics, such pronouncements evoke painful memories of overreaching socialist states in India and Uganda, which, Chakraborty argued, led to mass displacement and violence. He referenced the expulsion of 80,000 Asians from Uganda in 1972 and pogroms against Sikhs and Bengali refugees in India, warning that an omnipotent state can be a force for harm as well as good.
Chakrabarti, meanwhile, has faced his own share of scrutiny. In 2019, he was photographed wearing a t-shirt featuring Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose. While Chakrabarti viewed the shirt as an expression of cultural pride, some critics accused him of supporting a figure who “collaborated with the Nazis.” Chakrabarti has not shied away from controversy, often embracing bold proposals like a wealth tax—even if it means, as he told India Today, “taxing myself.” His goal, he says, is to “completely change the brand of the Democratic party.”
As New York prepares for Mamdani to take office on January 1, 2026, and San Francisco gears up for a historic congressional race, the rise of Indian-origin progressives like Mamdani and Chakrabarti signals a profound shift in American politics. Whether their visions for government will deliver the change their supporters hope for—or the consequences their critics fear—remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: the era of the status quo is over, and the next chapter of American political life will be shaped by voices that just a few years ago were barely heard above the din.
For now, the spotlight remains fixed on these trailblazers, as the country watches to see how their bold ideas and backgrounds will redefine what it means to lead in 21st-century America.
