Mamdani, muse and Pakistan

The victory of Zohran Mamdani — the youngest South Asian socialist elected as New York mayor amid a capitalist, xenophobic wave backed by Trump and his billionaire supporters — is a triumph worth celebrating. It marks a milestone for the people of New York and humanists across the globe, and it remains deeply relevant to societies striving for the ideals Mamdani's success embodies. Similarly, the New York public's vote, which defeated all state-sponsored odds, offers a clear lesson to rulers elsewhere who deprive their subjects of a good life: they should pause and introspect — a concept utterly alien to Pakistan's rulers.

Predictably, Pakistan's ruling elite seized this momentous occasion in a self-serving way. Having consistently failed their people for decades, the rulers from across the country wasted no time in claiming Mamdani as their lost avatar and his success as the personification of their ideologies. They shared calculated messages aimed at leveraging and affecting both the world and their own people — albeit in different ways. To the world, they sought to convey that they embodied exalted shared values, all while expecting to gain international goodwill. To their own people, they portrayed themselves as true friends and redeemers. Hypocritically, they applaud a democratic triumph abroad while dismantling democracy at home.

Yet what they fail to express on such occasions is precisely the reason they have, over decades of rule in the country, betrayed the very ideals they now claim to personify through the success of others far beyond their borders. That is, the values and rights — including the right to vote - that our ruling elite admire in others are rarely extended to their own people.

Over the decades, they have, through their epic misgovernance, garnered so much public trust that they rarely think of turning to the people for power. That is, they don't question whether they deserve to be elevated to power by the people. Therefore, they have, by design, downgraded, sold and surrendered the people's right and worth of vote in exchange for their own power and pelf.

The incumbent regime, owing to its rigged and rugged mandate, has been particularly ruthless towards the people's rights, democracy, and the Constitution. What this ruling elite eulogises in others and demands from them is precisely what it has itself deprived the masses of — a vote that counts; a freedom that is eloquent and expressive: a judiciary that is free and vibrant; an intelligentsia that is selfless, genuinely informed; and media that stands with the truth and ruled.

Instead, the intelligentsia, superior judges and clergy barely lag behind their patrons in power: while they call for and eulogise the universality of freedom, justice and respect for people beyond the borders, they prostrate themselves before power at home. For instance, the media and the clergy justify the worsening public plight, while the judiciary legalises oppression and constitutional surrender and withdraws the path to redress.

This collusion has largely left them and their patrons with ironic achievements — often against the people and seldom worth taking credit for — such as the PECA Act; the 26th Amendment; the conquest of the superior judiciary and mainstream media; the undoing of civilian space, along with the diminished value and counting of public votes; deepening socio-economic and political polarisation; skyrocketing inflation, abject poverty and rampant corruption; and the 27th Amendment that is on the horizon. In other words, they have to their credit and at their disposal an exhaustively long list of deliberate and successful failures for the country and its people.

Therefore, their swiftness in sharing credit for others' achievements is understandable. Had they been equally swift in serving the people, they wouldn't have felt the need to take credit for others' work beyond the borders.

And had Mamdani contested in Pakistan, he would either not have been in Pakistan or not have been Mamdani, altoghther. Would he?