Of all Zohran Mamdani’s manifold facets — his youth, his socialism, his Muslim faith — one aspect mostly escaped attention during his mayoral campaign’s joyful embrace of New York City’s rich pluralism.
Mamdani, New York City’s next mayor, is the child of an interfaith marriage. His mother is Hindu, his father is Muslim. Both belong to the Indian diaspora. Deep resentments have persisted between these two of India’s largest religious communities, and more so after the bloody Partition of 1947 when Muslim-majority Pakistan was born as an outcome of India’s independence from the British.
Hateful posts against Mamdani on the social media platform X reached 1.5 billion accounts between June and October this year, according to a study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a Washington think tank.
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