Stirring Emotions – and Scary Ones

Zohran Mamdani photographed by Kara McCurdy (Wikimedia Commons)

Not being US-born, Zohran Mamdani, New York’s 34-year-old mayor, won’t ever become his country’s president. However, if you have not already heard it, this eight-minute speech of his will tell you why his stature appears to have touched new heights. 

In this speech, Mamdani congratulated the Knicks team on becoming America’s latest basketball champions. Without staring at the teleprompters that were undoubtedly in front of him, he recreated scores of images from the Knicks’ long saga, which culminated this month in victory after 53 years of championship drought. Each of those images was real to hungrily loyal -- and repeatedly disappointed – New York fans who had been rooting all their lives for the Knicks. 

The precision with which Mamdani recaptured consequential moments from the present and the past has surely strengthened his bond with New York. After this speech, can anyone doubt Mamdani’s love for his city? Or for its cherished players? 

The following appraisal from James Dator on Yahoo Sports gives an idea of the nature of the reaction: “This will truly rank among the great sports speeches of all time. Not just by a politician at a victory rally, but ever. It was pretty much perfect.” 

In a US which (like so many other countries) now seems suddenly curious about your race, ancestry, and religion, and where, in America’s case, the establishment is pronouncedly white and Christian, the spontaneous pride of so many Americans in Mamdani, a young Africa-born ethnic Indian who sees himself as a Shia Muslim, is wonderfully heartening. 

TEAM, NOT ETHNIC GROUP 

Of course, the blessing of great sporting contests, and of the fans integral to them, is that emotions generated usually go to a team, and to the team’s city, not to any race, religion, or caste. In the 2026 basketball finals, a race or religion did not take the field against another. It was just the Knicks of New York playing and defeating the Spurs of San Antonio, Texas – and doing so by bringing themselves back from what at one point looked like certain defeat. 

We know that enthusiasm at sporting results is not riot-proof. Let’s hope that during the month-long soccer contest that has begun for FIFA’s World Cup, where the winner in the final, slated for July 19, will be a country rather than a city, the globe will witness brilliance and teamwork rather than inferior emotions dressed in patriotic colors. 

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The speed with which a number of opposition MPs and MLAs in India, especially those from West Bengal and Maharashtra, have crossed over to the ruling side, eating their words of denunciation against the BJP (very recent words in many cases), and singing tunes in honor of a Hindu Raj over India, has astonished many. 

We may recognize, however, that the Indian regime’s capacity, through its tax and investigative agencies, to harm/frighten anyone is considerable, as is the regime’s ability to gratify the greed and ambitions of select individuals. 

DEFECTIONS & REJIGGING 

As this column marked a week back, the Modi government seems set on “creating” a two-thirds majority in each house of parliament, even though elections hadn’t provided the numbers necessary. With defections and rejigging, the constitution can be amended. 

We could witness major changes. India’s federal character might weaken noticeably. States may lose much of their vitality and distinctiveness. Those wanting a unitary, and more uniform, India may have their wishes gratified. 

Modi’s oft-reiterated desire for simultaneous elections for the national chamber (the Lok Sabha) and all state legislatures may be fulfilled. And new hurdles may be erected against efforts to ensure equal rights for minorities. 

Those who’ve long sought a Hindu Raj may celebrate its advent, but it will be hard to square such an “advance” with India’s global image as a champion of pluralism and of freedom of belief. As for the legislators who have gone against what they were voted for, their switch will have privately embarrassed them. Can they be comfortable with the videos now being shown on India’s TV channels of the virtues they’re finding in the BJP regime? 

Writing in Kolkata’s The Telegraph, D. P. Yadav says: “The serial defections from multiple Opposition parties have fuelled confidence among the government’s leaders about having the coveted two-thirds parliamentary majority by the time the monsoon session starts next month... The BJP is keen to enact a law for simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls countrywide — well before the 2029 general election.” 

The Hindu of June 22 quotes Ashok Gehlot, former chief minister of the border state of Rajasthan and a senior leader of the Congress Party, as saying that the BJP government “has begun identifying and demolishing religious sites belonging to the Muslim community in Rajasthan’s border areas adjoining Pakistan under the pretext of removing encroachments.” 

REORDERING SOCIETY 

Let us remember that “Hindu Raj” – an India where Hindus are supreme – has been the goal of some extremely powerful bodies in India. These bodies now include (1) the present government in New Delhi and most of India’s states, (2) the BJP, the political party behind the governments, and (3) the RSS, the nationwide Hindu organization founded in 1925, which has staffed the Modi-led government, the BJP, and dozens of other associations aiming to reorder every section of Indian society in line with Hindu ideas as defined by the RSS. 

Muslims make up about 28 percent of West Bengal’s population. Writing in the portal The Wire, journalist Anil Sinha says that Suvendu Adhikari, the state’s new BJP chief minister (not too long ago, he was the right-hand of Mamata Banerjee, the recently defeated opponent of the BJP), “has been issuing orders daily to make [Muslim] lives miserable.” It appears that these orders “do not spare any part of their life, including the religious one. The orders cover food, prayers, benefits from welfare schemes and public celebrations.” 

Given human nature, and given also the long history of Hindu-vs-Hindu feuds, it is hard to imagine any lasting amity in an India under Hindu Raj. Some well-identified (and carefully watched) groups privately think they can run a Hindu Raj better than Modi and his team.

TEMPLE ROBBERY 

They were surely strengthened in this view by the news of the disappearance, on a large scale, of jewels and cash left as offerings at the temple for Lord Ram. This was the temple that Modi had inaugurated with unimaginable fanfare on January 22, 2024, in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya city, where, in popular Hindu belief, the deity was born as a human being many millennia ago. 

A seasoned civil servant who had served as Prime Minister Modi’s principal secretary, Nripendra Misra, was asked to chair the trust that constructed the large temple. Misra, who continues as an ex officio trustee of the temple’s trust, has acknowledged publicly, and with distress, that large-scale robbery has been taking place at the temple. 

UP’s BJP chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, has appointed a special committee to investigate the scandal, but surprise has been voiced at no complaint having been registered as yet with the UP police. This video of an interview with Mr. Misra done by the online portal The Print will be of interest.

India’s Cockroach movement is not showing signs of collapsing. As of writing, Abhijeet Dipke, the movement’s initiator, appears to be holding his ground, along with student supporters, in the only space in New Delhi where protestors may for some hours assemble and raise their voices -- a small open area next to the 18th-century observatory, Jantar Mantar. 

Citing student suicides connected to botched exams for professional courses, Dipke has refused to vacate the protest ground where he has remained for more than 48 hours. Dipke insists that his outfit, the Cockroach Janata Party, will talk to the government only if education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns. When a reporter from BBC Hindi queried him on Modi, Dipke said the PM too would be answerable if he doesn’t ask Pradhan to resign. 

Given the CJP’s apparent appeal to India’s Gen Z, it will be interesting to see what the government does with the protesting Dipke and his associates. In a June 23 television interview to NDTV, Minister Pradhan described the CJP as the “B team of disruptive elements.” 

The accelerated weakening of India’s democratic institutions – legislatures, the media, the judiciary, the election commission, and more – places a great demand on social media. Can brave voices there achieve what conventional platforms are failing to provide? Who knows. 

What can be observed is the sprouting of a number of courageous YouTube channels drawing a large viewership in virtually every part of India. The powerful forces that have invested themselves and their vast resources in setting up a Hindu Raj will no doubt be striving to “rectify” this situation. The YouTube channels will be in their crosshairs.

ON A SWISS HILL 

I won’t try to interpret the progress/lack-of-progress in the negotiations in Switzerland between the US team led by Vice President Vance and the Iranian team, which included Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Araghchi. Some of what the negotiators have said in public is meant for their domestic audiences, some for a peace-hungry global community, and a little slice, one supposes, for opposite numbers in their talks. 

That Pakistanis and Qataris were present on the Swiss hill as mediators confirms the world’s stake in what’s happening. The continuing destruction of lives and homes in Lebanon is certainly not the only roadblock that negotiators and mediators must address, but that obliteration is tragic beyond words. I was therefore shaken by this recent tweet attributed to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister for national security: “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep... Lebanon must burn.” The tweet has been widely commented on.

Ben-Gvir belongs to a far-right outfit. Though not Netanyahu’s party colleague, he is part of the Israeli government. The madness in expressions of this kind, mouthed in different places and directed against a variety of groups, is an element in our world.