Personal Life of Zehran Mamdani: Who Are His Parents?

With the victory of Zehran Mamdani, the Muslim mayor-elect of New York City, various global media attempted to highlight different aspects of his private life and family biography.

According to Rokna, it was last Tuesday (November 4) that Zehran Mamdani, a Shia Muslim candidate in the New York elections, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, securing the mayoralty of New York City. But what do we know about the parents of the newly elected mayor?

Who Are Mamdani’s Parents?

According to the Indian news outlet NDTV, Zehran Mamdani was born to a Ugandan-Indian scholar father named Mahmood Mamdani and an Indian filmmaker mother named Mira Nair.

Who is Mahmood Mamdani?

NDTV reports that Mahmood Mamdani, Zehran Mamdani’s father, was born in 1946 in Mumbai, India, and grew up in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars in the fields of colonialism and political violence.

In 1972, when he was a young academic, Mahmood Mamdani, along with 60,000 other Asians, was expelled from Uganda by the country’s authoritarian leader, Idi Amin.

After earning his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1974, Mamdani taught in Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States. He currently holds a professorship in governance at Columbia University in New York. From 2010 to 2022, he led the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, transforming the institute into a leading center for postcolonial studies.

Who is Mira Nair?

Mira Nair, the mother of Zehran Mamdani, was born in 1957 in Rourkela, Odisha, India. She studied sociology at Delhi University and later earned a scholarship to Harvard University. As mentioned, Mamdani’s mother is a filmmaker, with her first work, Salaam Bombay! in 1988, depicting the lives of street children in Mumbai. The film won the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.

How Did Zehran’s Parents Meet?

Mira Nair met Mahmood Mamdani in Uganda in 1989 while working on the film Mississippi Masala. Two years later, they married, and their son Zehran was born in the same year.

[Image: Zehran Mamdani’s parents, the mayor-elect of New York City]