Back in 2006, I wrote a column in the now defunct Time Out Mumbai setting out the criteria for an urban agglomeration to be considered a “world city”. To qualify for that appellation, I argued, a city had to be massive in size, have historical depth, a thriving cultural life, appreciable social (including linguistic and religious) diversity, and be an economic powerhouse. I concluded that there were only three world cities: London, New York, and Mumbai.

I remembered that piece when reading about Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for the mayoralty of New York. Christian-dominated London, remarkably, already has a Muslim mayor; might New York, known so far for being Christian and Jewish (and atheist), also soon have one? In considering this question, it struck me that our third world city, Mumbai, comfortably beat them in this race, for it has had as many as six Muslim mayors, the first in 1934 and the last in 1963.

This column focuses on one of these Muslim mayors of Bombay, for whom his brief stint in that post was not his only or even his most important distinction. His name was Yusuf Meherally, and among the reasons for writing about him now is that he died 75 years ago this month.

Born in Bombay in 1903, Meherally studied at the Bharda High School and at Elphinstone College, where he acquired a formidable reputation as a debater. He also took a law degree, but was denied a licence to practice on account of his political views. For he had thrown himself into the freedom struggle, playing an active part in the protests against the all-White Simon Commission in 1928, and being jailed in the Salt Satyagraha two years later.

In 1934, the Congress Socialist Party was formed, seeking to give an egalitarian direction to the parent party led by Gandhi. Meherally became one of the CSP’s most articulate leaders, with a particular interest in workers’ rights and in anti-colonial movements in other parts of Asia and Africa. Through the 1930s he travelled tirelessly across India promoting the credo of grassroots socialism, while also visiting Europe and America to build bridges with democratic socialists there.

In April 1942, Yusuf Meherally was elected mayor of Bombay. In August of the same year, Gandhi launched the Quit India movement. In his capacity as mayor, it fell to Meherally to formally welcome Gandhi when he arrived by train in Bombay for the All Indian Congress Committee session which passed that........

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