When on a bitterly cold January afternoon outside New York’s City Hall, Zohran Mamdani raised his right hand and took the oath of office as mayor of New York City, the first Asian and Muslim mayor to do so, a universal political tradition was once again being embodied in 2026: conscience in public life. Beyond the spectacle of a victory against all odds, and the accompanying pageantry of inauguration, Mamdani in office is a moral signal in America and for those who are in awe of the American way of life.
For us in India, it became an occasion to recall another young mayor in another era, when the country was subjugated under British colonial rule: Subhas Chandra Bose when he assumed office as mayor of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in August 1930. He was barely 32 at that time, hailing from a privileged, cultured family which could trace its ancestry over 27 generations in Bengal. Subhas Chandra as mayor captured the imagination of Calcutta and Bengal; for the youth it was a call to their conscience, being unafraid of facing ruthless subjugation of colonial power.
The brutality of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 was still fresh in their minds, nor was the partition of Bengal and the upsurge of the Swadeshi movement forgotten by any means. There is a lineage of conscience which accompanies the violent history of conquest and subjugation. Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration is seen in this context of the awakening of conscience. As a Pakistani supporter congratulating the young mayor said, “logon ke dil badal gaye hain” (people’s hearts have changed). What is inspiring is Mamdani’s journey from Kampala where he was born, early years in Cape Town and finally in New York City where he studied. In 2014, he earned a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College.
It is not the typical tearful story of a migrant: “it is the story of an American citizen formed by American schools, American cities, and American struggles, one whose worldview reflects the global entanglements the United States itself helped create,” commented George Cassidy Payne, a Rochester-based poet and writer. On his 129th birth anniversary on 23 January 2026, to use phrases like ‘a born patriot and man of action’ is not to be cliché-ridden but to describe Subhas Chandra Bose as the product of the tempestuous 1920s when Bengal was seething with discontent against repressive policies of the British Empire.
To say that the young Bose symbolised the indomitable rebellious spirit of Bengal would not be an exaggeration; and his fervent patriotic attitude was that ‘no sacrifice is too great in the national cause’. The intellectual foundations of young Bose were laid when he voraciously read writings and speeches of Swami Vivekananda; at age 15. It was a spiritual revolution for him. From Vivekananda, he turned to the former’s master, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and imbibed his teachings from books, and diaries published by his disciples. Vivekananda taught Subhas that the greatest ideal was service of humanity, including service of one’s country.
Ramakrishna stressed that renunciation of lust and gold was the test of a man’s fitness for spiritual life. Subhas had found a new ideal, which inflamed his soul: to effect his own salvation and to serve humanity by abandoning all worldly desires and breaking away from all undue restraints. The more his parents tried to restrain him, the more rebellious he became like a true-to-type teenager. As he approached the end of his school career, his religious impulse began to grow in intensity and studies were no longer of primary importance.
Subhas was fortunate to grow in an environment conducive to the broadening of his mind. His attitude towards Muslims in general was largely influenced by his early contacts: living in a Muslim locality, taking part in their festivals, watching his father whom Muslims looked up to as a patriarch, and having Muslim teachers and Muslim class-mates, to say nothing of devoted Muslim servants at home, wrote SA Ayer, in the introduction to ‘Selected Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose’, published in 1962. Ayer was a minister in the Azad Hind Government. In Subhas’s undergraduate days, Aurobindo Ghosh was easily the most popular leader in Bengal, despite his voluntary exile in Pondicherry since 1909.
A regular reader of Sri Aurobindo’s monthly journal Arya, Subhas was impressed by the mystic’s deeper philosophy – how by a proper use of the different yogas one could rise step by step to the highest truth. Sri Aurobindo’s simple words were a clarion call: “I should like to see some of you becoming great; great not for your own sake, but to make India great, so that she may stand up with head erect amongst the free nations of the world. Those of you who are poor and obscure – I should like to see their poverty and obscurity devoted to the service of the motherland. Work that she might prosper, suffer that she might rejoice.” In his January 2026 inaugural address, Mamdani thanked his parents -“Mama and Baba”-acknowledged family “from Kampala to Delhi,” and recalled taking his oath of citizenship on Pearl Street.
When he declared, “New York belongs to all who live in it,” he rejected the logic that has long justified war: that difference must be governed through force. “No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election,” is a quote echoing in the global media. He vowed that under his administration City Hall will “deliver an agenda of safety, affordability, and abundance, where government looks and lives like the people it represents, never flinches in the fight against corporate greed, and refuses to cower before challenges that others have deemed too complicated.”
BBC reported: Mamdani ran an impressive campaign, recruiting an army of volunteers 100,000 strong to pound the pavements and knock on doors. His social media videos in multiple languages are credited for a vastly increasing voter turnout from a range of South Asian communities. A left-wing democratic socialist, his message was laser focused. By naming mosques alongside churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and mandirs, Mamdani has affirmed pluralism as a condition of peace, not a threat to it.
By speaking of halal cart vendors, Palestinian New Yorkers, Black homeowners, and immigrant workers bound together by labour and survival, he articulated a civic vision rooted in coexistence rather than coercion. He did not defend his Muslim identity in the face of a vicious, abusive campaign by the opposition. In 1921 in Calcutta, Subhas met Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das; he knew he had found a leader and meant to follow him. Deshbandhu had always been a friend of youth; Subhas began to feel that here was a man who knew what he was about and to whom youthfulness was not a shortcoming but a virtue.
When the Calcutta municipal corporation was established, and elections were held in March 1924, the Swaraj Party won with a comfortable majority. Chittaranjan Das was elected as the Mayor of Calcutta; Husain Shaheed Suhrawady was deputy Mayor. Under Das, Subhas Chandra Bose joined as the chief executive officer of municipal administration. It was an initiation in public life and administration for Subhas who devoted himself completely to the work of the corporation paying special attention to improving health and educational infrastructure. He set up primary schools and dispensaries in every ward, providing access to basic amenities.
A weekly paper ‘Calcutta Municipal Gazette’ was begun to spread awareness among citizens. Bose’s work in the corporation suffered a blow when he was arrested on 25 October 1924, but he continued with political and administrative work from the Alipore Central Jail for six weeks until he was shifted to Berhampur jail. Bose’s role in the corporation exemplified the meaning of Swaraj and furthered the nationalist cause. The functioning of municipalities, headed by Indians, was not a smooth affair, as nationalistic objectives of Indian leaders often collided with repressive counter-policies of the British government. The exile in Burma from 1924 to 1927 was the first major turning point in Subhas’s public career, in that it saw the transformation of a lieutenant to a leader.
Netaji Research Bureau notes. “In the late 1920s, Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, despite fundamental differences in ideological foundations, emerged as two ambassadors of youth and the spokesmen of the rising Left in national politics. Bose’s appearance at the Calcutta Congress in 1928 in resplendent military uniform was not so much a spectacle as a vision of the future. His sponsoring the Independence resolution at that historic meeting in opposition to Mahatma Gandhi was the first demonstration of his being ahead of his time and of his contemporaries. He went a step further at Lahore in 1929 by his call for a parallel government and mobilisation of peasants and workers.” In 1930, Subhas became the fifth Mayor of Calcutta and the journey which had begun with Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das had now reached a milestone. For Zohran Mamdani in New York, the journey has just begun in 2026.
(The writer is a researcher on history and heritage issues, and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya.)