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In the theatre of global politics, there is a recurring pattern: those who invoke the language of democracy and secularism most loudly are often the first to discard it when it fails to serve their ideological ends. Few recent episodes expose this hypocrisy more clearly than New York’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani’s recent win has ignited a multitude of reactions. I had refrained from commenting on the issue, for it is primarily an internal US matter. However, as Mamdani gained international traction, his previous positions on global issues started circulating again. That is when I noticed a 2020 post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) [https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1291124907028500480], by Mamdani, where he slams India in general and Hindus in particular on the Ram Mandir issue. My response to this 2020 post by Mamdani [https://x.com/amishra77/status/1986449544952021278] has gained some traction and commentary, and hence this article, for a longer, more reasoned reflection on the true nature of the modern Islamist threat. Mamdani’s attempts to lecture India about the Ram Mandir, as evidenced from the 2020 tweet thread (X post), steeped in the rhetoric of grievance, have reignited a larger conversation about ideological deceit, selective morality, and the Islamist exploitation of liberal values. The post of Mamdani uses half-truths and some outright fabrications to perpetuate the Islamist agenda against Hindus. Mamdani’s 2020 post, written at a time when he was already a US citizen but disingenuously styled himself as an “Indian Muslim”, was not an innocent identity assertion but a part of the larger Islamist belief system. It was a calculated attempt to appropriate the moral authority of a heritage he had formally renounced. What was even more scandalous was that Mamdani did not refer to himself as “Indian origin Muslim” but straight away “Indian Muslim” even though he was by then (in 2020) a US citizen and had actually contested and won elections in the USA. Mamdani was born and raised in Uganda, migrated to the United States, and acquired American citizenship years before he entered politics. Yet, when it suited his ideological narrative, he suddenly became “Indian” again—precisely because that identity offered him the rhetorical ammunition to condemn India from the safety of Western liberal platforms. This convenient toggling of identity – citizenship by convenience, nativity by agenda – is not accidental; it is emblematic of the global Islamist playbook. They will claim whichever identity yields the greatest leverage against the civilisation they seek to delegitimise. That is what makes Mamdani’s case more than just another tweet from a performative politician. His entire political persona is built upon a contradiction: he benefits from the freedoms, prosperity, and pluralism of Western democracy, but uses those privileges to attack the world’s largest democracy for exercising its own constitutional sovereignty. His ideological roots are unmistakable. Like many Islamist-Leftist hybrids who populate Western academia and politics, Mamdani weaponises human-rights vocabulary to launder sectarian narratives. The 2020 tweet about Ayodhya was part of that larger lawfare where legal institutions are not respected but exploited, where secularism is not a principle but a tactic. My response did not merely rebut a false claim; it unmasked an entire ideological enterprise. The Mamdani worldview depends on a selective respect for the rule of law. Islamists and their fellow travellers demand constitutionalism, tolerance, and pluralism only as long as those principles shield them from accountability or serve their mobilisation. The moment democratic outcomes go against their designs, those very principles are denounced as “majoritarian tyranny.” The moment the law establishes a boundary they dislike, the law itself becomes oppression. This is not dissent; it is deceit, a calibrated game of lawfare dressed up as activism. The Ayodhya dispute is the perfect test case for this duplicity. The 2019 Supreme Court of India judgment was not a political compromise or a sectarian diktat; it was one of the most detailed judicial exercises in modern history. Over decades, the Court sifted through archaeological reports, historical documents, colonial records, and testimonies from both sides. The best legal brains, especially on the Muslim side, argued the case. Finally, the Supreme Court, concluded, with clinical precision, that the conquest-structure demolished in 1992 stood atop a Hindu temple foundation, that Hindu worship at the site had been continuous for centuries, and that the Babri structure was not built on vacant land. The Court did what democracies do: it resolved a civilisational dispute within the boundaries of evidence and law, while simultaneously upholding the dignity of the minority by allotting alternate land for a mosque. It was justice, not triumphalism. Yet, instead of recognising this as a model of constitutional maturity, Mamdani and his ideological cohort interpret it as oppression. Why? Because the verdict broke the spine of their perpetual grievance narrative. That is the thing about Islamists and Jihadis. What we think are normal, civilised ways to decide issues between people, groups or societies – the Islamists (and of course Jihadis) simply refuse to adhere to them. Secular courts are but a necessary evil for them, only to be respected as long as they serve their pernicious agenda. Islamists cannot afford closure, which does not give them what they want. For decades, the Ayodhya issue was their proof that India’s majority faith was “intolerant,” that its civilisation was inherently unjust. That the mere fact of Hindus wanting to worship the birthplace of the very core of their religious belief and civilisational value system was evidence of their inherent bigotry. When the court delivered a verdict that both acknowledged historical wrongs and maintained secular fairness, the Islamist narrative lost its fuel. So, instead of applauding the rule of law, they questioned its legitimacy. They were not angry at the verdict’s reasoning; they were angry at its finality. For the Islamist mind, a conflict unresolved is a political resource or mobilisation and even violence; a conflict resolved peacefully is an existential defeat. This pattern is universal. When in the minority, Islamists plead for secularism and rights. When in power, they discard them in favour of purity and supremacy. The same script has played out from Iran to Turkey, from Pakistan to the corridors of Western campuses. Secularism is invoked as a shield, never as a shared value. In this theatre, law is merely a temporary costume, worn until power is secured. Mamdani’s ideological lineage thrives on this oscillation. He will swear by democracy in New York but sneer at its verdict in Ayodhya; he will praise pluralism in the West but mock it in Bharat. This duplicity is not inconsistency; it is strategy. The Ayodhya verdict threatens not because it demolished a structure, but because it built a precedent. It showed that a wounded civilisation could reclaim its sacred centre without riots, without vengeance, without violating law. It demonstrated that faith and modernity can coexist, that patience is not weakness, and that justice can be achieved without violence. That calm, methodical process – thousands of pages of evidence, thousands of hours of deliberation – is what the Islamist agenda cannot abide. Because it removes the excuse of victimhood, it exposes the emptiness of their moral posturing. The hypocrisy extends beyond faith. In the United States, Mamdani rose within a liberal framework that celebrates identity and debate. But the same man now seeks to delegitimise another democracy’s right to resolve its internal matters constitutionally. He reaps the fruits of freedom while deriding those who exercise it elsewhere. The irony is profound: a politician who could not win an argument in India because he renounced its citizenship now presumes to dictate its morality from afar. There is another dimension to Mamdani’s 2020 post (and many subsequent ones on the issue. In Mamdani’s book, a 400-year-old conquest structure built by a thug, by demolishing a place of worship, has greater salience than a millennia-old temple that embodies the belief of a billion people. And why, may one ask? Mamdani himself answers this question. In his 2020 tweet thread, he did not identify himself as an “Indian”, but as an “Indian Muslim”. For him, the beginning and end of his identity is Muslim. Ever seen an immigrant saying I am a “Chinese Buddhist” or I am an “Italian Christian” or I am an “Indian Hindu”? Mamdani, though, made his religion the centre piece of his identity. So, no matter what argument you present on Ayodhya or similar issues, Mamdani’s guiding principle will always be “Muslim first”. Mamdani, residing in the USA when he made this post and a US citizen, already having contested elections and won, in that country, conveniently called himself an Indian Muslim when the foundation-laying ceremony of Ram Mandir triggered him. This is nothing but the typical Ummah concept – some loyalties are transnational – in this case, the loyalty towards a structure built by a barbaric Muslim invader who destroyed a Hindu temple that existed there for millennia. It does beg the question – when it comes to making a choice between ‘Muslim transnational interest” and “US national interest”, what will Mamdani choose? But that mess is for the USA to sort out. For India, though, it should open the eyes of the naive. No matter how sophisticated the accent, how polished the facade and how slick the messaging, at core, once an Islamist, always an Islamist and only a throwaway distance from becoming a Jihadi. In the end, Ayodhya was never the real issue for Mamdani. It was merely an excuse. What unsettles ideologues like Mamdani is that India – a civilisation they caricature and resent- settled its deepest religious conflict with civility, legality, and grace. It is the success of that model that threatens them, not the temple itself. Because it proves that a nation rooted in dharma can uphold democracy better than those who merely preach it. The goal of the Ummah-worshipping global Islamists is not coexistence but capitulation. Their politics is not about rights but about dominance dressed as resistance. But to Mamdani and likes, I would like to quote a paragraph from an article I wrote on 5th August 2020 – the day Ram Temple’s foundation was laid, “The Mughals came and disappeared into history. The Portuguese came and went. The Dutch came and went. The French came and went. The invading Afghans and the Persians came and disappeared. The British came, lasted a while, but were also sent back. The Nehruvian construct dominated the first six decades of Independent India before its dark underbelly made it unsustainable. The world order has been written and rewritten and is now being rewritten again in the 492 years that have elapsed since 1528 CE. In almost half a millennium since then, nearly everything that men once believed would last for eternity has faded away in the sands of time. But what did not fade away was the faith of a civilisation in Maryada Purushottam. The times through these centuries were dark, the sacrifices asked and made were immense, the battle may have seemed to be insurmountable at times, and yet the faith persevered. August 5, 2020, is going to be a vindication of that faith and belief. When every other ancient civilisation has been lost to either proselytising groups or to communism, what is it about the Sanatan Dharma that it has kept the Indian civilisation going? The answer undoubtedly lies in the influence that Shri Ram’s life has had on our people over millennia”. The writer is the founding CEO of BlueKraft Digital Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
