Narendra Modi's silence on Zohran Mamdani’s victory reveals what terrifies Hindutva supporters

Hours after Zohran Mamdani’s historic win in the Democratic primary in June, in the race to be the mayor of New York City, the actor and Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian Kangana Ranaut took to social media to attack him. She reshared an earlier clip of Zohran protesting the construction of the Ram Mandir atop the demolished Babri Masjid, and declared that he was “ready to wipe out Hinduism.” Ranaut pointed out that this was despite having Mira Nair—a celebrated filmmaker “raised in great Bharat” who won the Padma Bhushan—for a mother and the prominent postcolonial theorist Mahmood Mamdani—of “Gujarati origin”—for a father. “And obviously son is named Zohran,” Ranaut wrote, “he sounds more Pakistani than Indian.”

Ranaut’s singular statement revealed the Hindu Right’s playbook in India today. Why was Zohran instantly deemed anti-Indian and threatening? He is Muslim, married to a Syrian-American, and refused to genuflect before Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's majoritarian project.

The fury now directed at Zohran from India’s right-wing ecosystem says far more about the Modi government than about the 34-year-old democratic socialist who has just taken charge of America’s most populous city. It exposes the ideological brittleness at the heart of Hindutva—a movement so insecure in its vision of India that it cannot tolerate even diaspora success stories that fall outside its narrow script. Your Indian lineage can be celebrated only if you bow to Modi, embrace Hindutva, and stay silent on Ayodhya 1992 or Gujarat 2002.

The studied silence from Modi on Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory speaks volumes, too. No congratulatory message has emerged from the prime minister’s usually hyperactive social media presence. This is not accidental but strategic. Zohran represents everything whose existence the Hindu Right has spent decades trying to deny.​