All About Zohran Mamdani’s Parents, Dad Mahmood Mamdani and Mom Mira Nair
- - All About Zohran Mamdani’s Parents, Dad Mahmood Mamdani and Mom Mira Nair
Makena GeraNovember 4, 2025 at 4:00 AM
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Zohran Mamdani, Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani on September 23, 2017 -
Zohran Mamdani was born in 1991 to dad Mahmood Mamdani, a professor, and Mira Nair, a filmmaker
Zohran's parents raised him in Uganda and South Africa before their family relocated to New York City in 1999
Zohran is now the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, and Mahmood and Mira have spoken out in support of their son
Zohran Mamdani’s parents, Mahmood Mamdani and Mira Nair, influenced his political beliefs.
Mahmood is a professor of government and anthropology at Columbia University, and Mira is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker who focuses largely on South Asian and Indian stories. The couple met in the late 1980s in Uganda and welcomed their son in 1991. The family lived in Africa for nearly a decade before moving to New York when Zohran was 7 years old.
The New York City mayoral candidate's views have been shaped by his upbringing, from witnessing his father’s career in academia and watching his mother’s movies, which often showcase overlooked perspectives.
Zohran told City & State in April 2023 that he spent time as a child attending rallies and marches with his parents, including protests over the Iraq war and Marxist lectures.
“When you’re the kid of two parents who are very involved in social justice, a lot of times what you remember as a playdate was you being at some rally or some march,” he said.
Here's everything to know about Zohran Mamdani’s parents, Mahmood Mamdani and Mira Nair.
They raised Zohran in Uganda, South Africa and New York
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Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani on February 15, 2006 in New York City
Mahmood and Mira raised Zohran in Uganda and South Africa before moving to New York.
The couple welcomed Zohran in 1991 in Kampala, Uganda, while Mahmood was a professor at Makerere University and Nair had made a name for herself as a filmmaker with her 1988 debut movie Salaam Bombay!, per The New York Times.
The family also lived in Cape Town, South Africa, while Mahmood served as director of the African Studies center at the University of Cape Town.
When Zohran was 7 years old, Mahmood joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1999, and the three moved together to New York City, The New York Times reported. (Zohran became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.) They lived on the Upper West Side in a Columbia-subsidized apartment, while Mira reportedly also owned a $2 million condo in Chelsea, according to City & State.
Zohran has admitted that he lived a “very privileged” childhood. “I never had to want for something, and yet I knew that was not in any way the reality for most New Yorkers,” he told The New York Times in June 2025.
Mira is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker
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Zohran Mamdani and Mira Nair on October 9, 2016 in London, England
Mira, a Harvard graduate, is a prominent filmmaker whose work focuses on South Asian and Indian stories.
Her debut title, Salaam Bombay!, in 1988, earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Her later work also received critical acclaim, including the 1991 movie Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding in 2001 and The Namesake in 2006.
As a child, Zohran grew up around his mother’s movies. Mira told The New York Times that she remembered seeing Mississippi Masala star Denzel Washington holding 3-month-old Zohran on a red carpet for the project.
Zohran even spent time on Mira’s movie sets, notably creating and producing the soundtrack for her 2016 film Queen of Katwe as well as rapping on one of the songs featured in it under his rapper persona, Young Cardamom.
In addition to being around her work, Zohran appreciates the significance behind it.
“It’s truly a wild thing when your mother happens to be one of your favorite filmmakers,” Zohran told City & State. “She has this mantra of, ‘If we don’t tell our own stories, no one else will.’ ”
In a 2024 Mother’s Day post on Instagram Zohran called Mira his “dearest and darling Mama,” adding that she “taught me to love mischief...taught me no box is big enough to accept…who taught me so much.”
Mahmood is a longtime professor at Columbia University
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Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani during the 69th Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2012 in Venice, Italy
Mahmood is a professor of international affairs, anthropology and government who has spent most of his career at Columbia University.
After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1974, he worked as a professor at multiple universities, including the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, Makerere University in Uganda, and the University of Cape Town, per his Columbia University bio. In 1999, he joined the faculty at Columbia and has worked there ever since.
Mahmood’s work focuses on settler colonialism and human rights, as well as Marxism and the history of war and genocide in Africa. He is a prominent scholar in postcolonialism and has written several books.
Mahmood has faced backlash for his pro-Palestinian stance and been accused of anti-Semitism, which he has adamantly rejected, according to The New York Times. Zohran parallels his father's views on Palestinian rights.
Mira uses her experiences with her family as inspiration for her films
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Zohran Mamdani, Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani on June 24, 2025 in the Long Island City, New York
Mira has said that she draws inspiration from her own life experience as well as her family's relationships with one another.
Mississippi Masala — which centers around an interracial romance in Mississippi — was inspired by Mira’s relationship with Mahmood. She told The Hollywood Reporter in July 2025 that the film was a fixture in their household when Zohran was growing up, and she made it to start conversations.
“It holds a mirror up to people and what they might think,” Mira explained.
Her 2012 film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, about a Pakistani man embroiled in the conflict after 9/11, showcasing the divide and distrust between groups in the aftermath, was similarly inspired by the family’s experiences.
Zohran and his parents moved to New York about two years before 9/11, and experienced the cultural divide and suspicion in the wake of the tragedy. The family felt as though they were being “looked at askance,” and “suddenly this home and amazing place that didn’t feel like home anymore,” Mira told The Hollywood Reporter.
The experience inspired her to make the film, and Zohran encouraged her to do so. At the time, Zohran was at Bowdoin College, and Mira said that he was “my oxygen, my fuel” during the making of the movie.
Zohran's parents shaped his political views
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Mira Nair and Zohran Mamdani on September 20, 2016 in Hollywood, California
Though Mira and Mahmood told The New York Times in June 2025 that Zohran had not turned to them for political advice, their worldview and career paths have shaped Zohran’s democratic socialist political stance and mayoral campaign.
“One thing that my parents have taught me, among many, is the necessity of addressing what is actually happening as opposed to pretending that it’s not,” Zohran told Bon Appétit in June 2025. "In politics, there is such an incentive to create an alternative world as opposed to the one that people are living through."
He continued, “I think part of what has taken our campaign to this point has been the fact that we have espoused a politics of no translation, a politics that is direct.”
Zohran has also said that his privileged upbringing as an immigrant has inspired him to improve the system in New York for everyone.
“I have always been honest as to how I have grown up and the ways in which my parents’ successes in academia and film allowed me to have a childhood that every New Yorker should have,” he told The New York Times. “I am committed to ensuring this is a city for each and every New Yorker, not just one that serves the few that it’s serving today.”
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