Hours before greeting King Charles III in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked about the royal visit during a news conference in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
The mayor quickly distanced himself, saying that he would be attending a ceremony at the 9\/11 Memorial and Museum \u201calongside a number of other elected officials\u201d and that would be the extent of his interaction with the king.<\/p>\n
But what would he say to King Charles if they were to have a private meeting?<\/p>\n
\u201cI would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor Diamond,\u201d Mr. Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s decision to invoke the 105.6-carat diamond \u2014 taken from an 11-year-old Indian prince in the 1840s when India was a British colony and presented to Queen Victoria \u2014 was in character.<\/p>\n
Mr. Mamdani was born in Uganda, also once part of the British Empire, to Indian parents<\/a> who have helped to shape his political views. His father, Mahmood Mamdani<\/a>, is a leading scholar of anticolonialism. His mother, Mira Nair,<\/a> is an award-winning filmmaker whose movies have examined the colonial experience<\/a>. India has lobbied for the diamond, part of the crown jewels in the Tower of London, to be returned.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani is also the city\u2019s first democratic socialist mayor, and he has said his goal is to uplift the city\u2019s working-class residents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mayor,\u201d said Joe Calvello, his spokesman, \u201cis generally opposed to the idea of a king.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time that Mr. Mamdani has weighed in on international politics.<\/p>\n The mayor, a staunch opponent of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza and a supporter of Palestinian rights, said before winning the mayoralty that he would call for the Police Department to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> of Israel if he came to New York City. Mr. Mamdani, the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor, angered some Indian American Hindus when he criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, whom he has also called a \u201cwar criminal” for his treatment of the country\u2019s Muslim minority.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani did greet King Charles at the memorial, where they exchanged pleasantries and where the king and Queen Camilla left a bouquet of flowers.<\/p>\n At the event, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman who is chairman of the museum, was photographed laying flowers with King Charles while the mayor and other elected officials looked on.<\/p>\n \u201cMike Bloomberg has a deep respect for the monarchy and viewed himself as an ambassador for the city,\u201d said Chris Coffey, a political strategist and onetime adviser to Mr. Bloomberg. \u201cMayor Mamdani\u2019s politics are a little bit different than that, and he views himself as more of a populist.\u201d<\/p>\n