Zohran Mamdani has been elected as New York City’s new mayor.
His parents are scholar Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair.
His wife, Syrian-American artist Rama Duwaji, lives and works in Brooklyn.
Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City’s new mayor has spotlighted not only his political ascent but also the family that helped shape it — filmmaker Mira Nair, scholar Mahmood Mamdani and artist Rama Duwaji — whose ideas and creativity have defined his outlook.
Born in 1991 in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani. The family’s life across Uganda, India and the United States shaped his global perspective. He spent early childhood years in Uganda and South Africa before the family moved to New York in 1999, when his father joined Columbia University’s faculty. They settled on the Upper West Side, and Zohran became a naturalised US citizen in 2018, Mint reported.
Inside the Nair–Mamdani household: Film, ideas and politics
Mira Nair, born in 1957 in Rourkela, India, is a filmmaker who has focused on migration, identity and cultural intersections. A Harvard graduate, her first feature, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for an Academy Award. Her later films include Mississippi Masala (1991), Monsoon Wedding (2001) and The Namesake (2006).
According to Mint, Nair met Mahmood Mamdani in 1989 while researching Mississippi Masala in Uganda. She had intended to interview him about his book From Citizen to Refugee; the meeting developed into a personal and intellectual partnership. They married in 1991, the same year Zohran was born.
Mahmood Mamdani, born in Mumbai in 1946 and raised in Kampala, is a scholar of colonialism and postcolonial governance. Expelled from Uganda under Idi Amin in 1972, he completed a PhD at Harvard University in 1974. Now a professor of Government and Anthropology at Columbia University, his 1996 book Citizen and Subject introduced the concept of the “bifurcated state.” Mint reported that Mahmood has held posts at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Makerere University and the University of Cape Town, and directed the Makerere Institute of Social Research from 2010 to 2022. His public positions on Palestinian rights and criticism of Israeli policies have been controversial; his son has echoed similar positions in political debate.
The Syrian-American artist shaping Mamdani’s personal world
Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Sawaf Duwaji, is a Syrian illustrator and visual artist based in Brooklyn. Mint reported the couple met on the dating app Hinge and married at New York City Hall in early 2025.
Born in Houston, Texas, to Syrian parents, Duwaji holds a BFA in Communication Design from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master’s in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Her clients include The New Yorker, The Washington Post, VICE, BBC, Apple, Spotify, Tate Modern and Cartier.
From Kampala to City Hall, the Mamdani family’s mix of intellectual work and creative practice has been a steady influence on New York’s newest mayor.
(With inputs from Mint)
