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Mahmood Mamdani

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This article is about the Ugandan academic. For the Rajya Sabha member, see Mahmood Madani. For the social entrepreneur, see Mohammed Mamdani.

Mahmood Mamdani
Mamdani in 2021
20th Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research
In office
June 2010 – February 2022
Preceded byNakanyike Musisi
Succeeded byLyn Ossome
Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University
In office
1999–2004
Preceded byGeorge Clement Bond
Succeeded byMamadou Diouf
Personal details
Born (1946-04-23) 23 April 1946 (age 79)
Bombay, British India
CitizenshipUganda[1][2]
Spouse
​
(m. 1991)​
ChildrenZohran Mamdani
EducationUniversity of Pittsburgh (BA)
Tufts University (MA)
Harvard University (PhD)
AwardsHerskovits Prize (1997)
Lenfest Award (2011)

Mahmood Mamdani FBA (/mɑːˈmuːd məmˈdɑːni/ mah-MOOD məm-DAH-nee; born 23 April 1946) is a Ugandan academic, author, and political commentator. The Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology, political science and African studies at Columbia University,[3] he also serves as the chancellor of Kampala International University in Uganda.[4][5]

He was previously the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) in Kampala, Uganda, from 2010 until 2022.[6][7] Mamdani specialises in the study of African and international politics, colonialism and post‐colonialism, and the politics of knowledge production.

Early life and education

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Mamdani was born on 23 April 1946 in Bombay, India, during the period of British colonial rule.[8][9] He was raised in Kampala, Uganda, as part of the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa. His parents, Gujarati Muslims, were born in the British territory of Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), and moved to Bombay while his father attended college there.[10][11] The family returned to Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika when Mamdani was two, and moved to Uganda when he was five or six years old.[10] He is an Indian-Ugandan.[12]

At the time, Uganda was racially segregated, including where people lived, the schools, the mosques, and children's play areas. For his primary school education, he first attended a madrasa, and then the Government Indian Primary School.[10] He grew up speaking Gujarati, Urdu, and Swahili, and started studying English in sixth grade.[10] After junior secondary school, he attended Old Kampala Senior Secondary School, where he was secretary of the Do-it-Yourself Physics club.[13]

Mamdani was one of 23 Ugandan students in the 1963 group of the Kennedy Airlift, a US-funded scholarship program that brought hundreds of East Africans to universities in the United States and Canada between 1959 and 1963.[14][15] Mamdani began studying at the University of Pittsburgh in 1963 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1967.

He was among the many students in the northern US who made the bus journey south to Montgomery, Alabama, organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in March 1965 to participate in the civil rights movement. This was during the time of, but distinct from, the Selma to Montgomery marches. He was jailed during the march and was allowed to make a phone call. Mamdani called the Ugandan Ambassador in Washington, D.C., for assistance. The ambassador asked him why he was "interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country", to which he responded by saying that this was not an internal affair but a freedom struggle and that they too had gotten their freedom only last year.[16] Soon after, he learned about Karl Marx's work from an FBI visit.[17]

He then attended The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University and graduated in 1968 with a Master of Arts degree in political science and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy degree in 1969. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in government from Harvard University in 1974. His thesis was titled Politics and Class Formation in Uganda.[18][19]

Career

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Mamdani returned to Uganda in early 1972 and was employed by Makerere University in Kampala as a teaching assistant at the same time conducting his doctoral research; only to be expelled later that year by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin due to his ethnicity. He left Uganda for a refugee camp in the United Kingdom in early November.[20]

He left England in mid-1973 after being recruited to the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.[16] In Dar es Salaam, he completed writing his thesis and was active with anti-Amin groups. In 1979, he attended the Moshi Conference as an observer and returned to Uganda after Amin was overthrown following the Uganda–Tanzania War[21] as a Frontier Interne of the World Council of Churches. He was posted to the Church of Uganda offices in Mengo.[citation needed]

In 1984, while attending a conference in Dakar, Senegal, he became stateless after his Ugandan citizenship was withdrawn by the government under Milton Obote because of his criticism of its policies.[22] He returned to Dar es Salaam and was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for the spring semester in 1986. After Obote was deposed for the second time, Mamdani once again returned to Uganda in June 1986.[15] He was the founding director of the Centre for Basic Research (CBR), Uganda's first non-governmental research organisation, serving from 1987 to 2006.[23]

He was also a visiting professor at the University of Durban-Westville in South Africa (January to June 1993), at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library in New Delhi (January to June in 1995), and at Princeton University (1995–96).[citation needed]

In 1996, he was appointed the inaugural holder of the AC Jordan chair of African studies at the University of Cape Town.[24] He left after having disagreements with the administration over the draft of his syllabus for a foundation course on Africa called "Problematizing Africa".[25] From 1998 to 2002, he served as president of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. In December 2001, he gave a speech on "Making Sense of Violence in Postcolonial Africa" at the Nobel Centennial Symposium in Oslo, Norway.[26]

In 2008, in an open online poll, Mamdani was voted as the ninth "top public intellectual" in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (US).[27][28] His essays have appeared in the London Review of Books and other publications.[29][30][31][32][33][excessive citations]

Work

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Mamdani specialises in the study of African and international politics, colonialism and post‐colonialism, and the politics of knowledge production. His works explore the intersection between politics and culture, a comparative study of colonialism since 1452, the history of civil war and genocide in Africa, the Cold War and the War on Terror, and the theoretical history of human rights.[34]

His research as of 2016 took “as its point of departure his 1996 book, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Colonialism".[35] In it, he argued that the post-colonial state cannot be understood without a clear analysis of the institutional colonial state. The nature of the colonial state in Africa was a response to the dilemma of the 'native question' and argued that it took on the form of a 'Bifurcated State'.[36] This was characterised by 'direct rule' on the one hand which was a form of 'urban civil power' and focused on the exclusion of natives from civil freedoms guaranteed to citizens in civil society.[37] Whilst on the other it was characterised by indirect rule which was rural in nature and involved the incorporation of 'natives' into a 'state enforced customary order' enforced by a 'rural tribal authority' which he termed as 'decentralised despotism'.[37] This state was 'Janus faced' and 'contained a duality: two forms of power under a single hegemonic authority'.[37] In the post-colonial realm, the urban sphere was to an extent deracialised but the rural one remained subject to quasi colonial control whether at the hands of conservative rulers for whom it provided their own power base or those of radical ones with centralised authoritarian projects of their own.[38] In this way both experiences reproduced 'one part of the dual legacy of the bifurcated state and created their own distinctive version of despotism'.[39] Mamdani analysed historical case studies in South Africa and Uganda to argue that colonial rule tapped into authoritarian possibilities whose legacies often persist after independence.[40] Challenging conventional perceptions of apartheid in South Africa as exceptional, he argues that apartheid was the generic form of a European colony in Africa, encompassing aspects of indirect rule and association.[41]

In his 2004 book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror Mamdani said that suicide bombers should be recognized “as a category of soldier” and that it should be “understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism”.[42] Some academics said this was not an advocacy of suicide bombing, but merely an analysis.[43]

Personal life

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Mamdani is married to Mira Nair, an Indian film director and producer. They met in Kampala, Uganda, in 1989 when Nair was conducting research for her film, Mississippi Masala,[15] and married in 1991. As of 2025, they live in Manhattan, New York City.[44]

Mamdani and Nair have a son, Zohran Mamdani. He is a member of the New York State Assembly, representing the 36th District in Queens.[45] Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election.[46]

Mamdani is Muslim.[47]

Honours and awards

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Awards

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In July 2017, Mamdani was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[53]

Honorary degrees

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Bibliography

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Books

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  • The Myth of Population Control: Family, Class and Caste in an Indian Village (1972)
  • From Citizen to Refugee: Ugandan Asians Come to Britain (1973)[59]
  • Politics and Class Formation in Uganda (1976)[60]
  • Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda (1984)[61]
  • Academic Freedom in Africa (1994)
  • Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (1996)[62]
  • When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda (2001)[63]
  • Understanding the Crisis in Kivu[64]
  • Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (2004)[65]
  • Scholars in the Marketplace. The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005 (2007)[66]
  • Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (2009)[67]
  • Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (The W.E.B. DuBois Lectures) (2012)[68]
  • Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (2020)

Collected essays

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  • Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on the Politics of Rights and Culture (2000)[69]

Edited volumes

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  • Uganda Studies in Labour (Codesria Book Series) (1968)[70]

Other works

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  • Studies in Labor Markets (National Bureau of Economic Research Universities-National Bureau Conference Ser)
  • African Studies in Social Movements and Democracy (Actes-Sud Papiers)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (23 February 2021). "Mahmood Mamdani on Uganda". Africa is a Country.
  2. ^ "Permanent Minorities and the Politics of Survivors: A conversation with Mahmood Mamdani". World Peace Foundation.
  3. ^ "Faculty Bio: Mahmood Mamdani". Columbia University. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  4. ^ "Profile: Mahmood Mamdani". Kampala International University. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  5. ^ "Kampala International University (KIU) Appoints Prof. Mahmood Mamdani as Chancellor". kiu.ac.ug (Press release). Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  6. ^ "Profile: Mahmood Mamdani". Makerere University. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  7. ^ Agaba, John. "Mamdani talks about his research legacy and work at Makerere". University World News. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  8. ^ "Mahmood Mamdani education and career path: How Zohran Mamdani's father built a legacy of revolution through ideas and exile". The Times of India. 25 June 2025. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
  9. ^ "Pr. Mahmood Mamdani (1998-2002)". Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
  10. ^ a b c d Chen, Kuan-Hsing; Gao, Shiming; Tang, Xiaolin (2016). "The formation of an African intellectual: an interview with Mahmood Mamdani". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. 17 (3): 456–480. doi:10.1080/14649373.2016.1218676.
  11. ^ Muhoozi, Mourice (6 March 2022). "Meet Uganda's most Iconic academician, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani". Watchdog Uganda.
  12. ^ "Who Is Zohran Mamdani? Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair's son contesting for New York City mayor elections; all you need to know". The Times of India. 14 June 2025. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  13. ^ "Uganda: Buganda And Uganda At Crossroads". AllAfrica. Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
  14. ^ Shachtman, Tom (2009). Airlift to America. How Barack Obama Sr, John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya, and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours. St. Martins Press.[page needed]
  15. ^ a b c Sen, Manjula (25 January 2009). "She interviewed me, we fell in love almost instantly". The Telegraph. Calcutta. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  16. ^ a b Mamdani, Mahmood (28 April 2007). "The Asian question again: A reflection". New Vision (Uganda) via pambazuka.org. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  17. ^ Shringarpure, Bhakti (15 July 2013). "In Conversation with Mahmood Mamdani". Warscapes. Retrieved 6 November 2017. I thought the guy Marx had just died. […] So that was my introduction to Karl Marx.
  18. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1976). Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. New York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 0-85345-378-0. OCLC 2073894.
  19. ^ Allen, Judith Van; Mamdani, Mahmood; Shivji, Issa G. (November 1977). "Reviewed Works: Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. by Mahmood Mamdani; Class Struggles in Tanzania. by Issa G. Shivji". Contemporary Sociology. 6 (6). American Sociological Association: 702. doi:10.2307/2066367. eISSN 1939-8638. ISSN 0094-3061. JSTOR 2066367.
  20. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (6 October 2022). "The Asian Question". London Review of Books. Vol. 44, no. 19. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 8 July 2025.
  21. ^ McCormack, Pete (17 October 2005). "Interview with Mahmood Mamdani". petemccormack.com. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  22. ^ Kagolo, Francis (8 February 2012). "Prof. Mamdani to be honoured among Africa's best". New Vision. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  23. ^ a b "Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Uganda's Leading Political Scholar & recipient Ugandan Diaspora Award 2012". ugandandiaspora.com. 29 November 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  24. ^ "UCT in war over 'bantu education'". Mail & Guardian. 11 March 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  25. ^ "Is African Studies at UCT a New Home for Bantu Education?" (PDF). Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  26. ^ "Speech by Dr. Mahmood Mamdani: "Making Sense of Violence in Postcolonial Africa"". Nobel Prize. 6 December 2001. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
  27. ^ "The 2008 List". Prospect Magazine (UK) / Foreign Policy (US). 2008. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009.
  28. ^ "The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals". Foreign Policy (167). Slate Group, LLC: 54–57. 2008. eISSN 1945-2276. ISSN 0015-7228. JSTOR 25462318.
  29. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (8 March 2007). "The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency". London Review of Books. pp. 5–8. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  30. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (4 December 2008). "Lessons of Zimbabwe". London Review of Books. pp. 17–21. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  31. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (20 January 2011). "The Invention of the Indigène". London Review of Books. pp. 31–33. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  32. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (7 November 2013). "The Logic of Nuremberg". London Review of Books. pp. 33–34. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  33. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (19 July 2018). "The African University". London Review of Books. pp. 29–32. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  34. ^ Sneh, Itai Nartzizenfield (2008). The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed to Change U.S. Foreign Policy. Peter Lang. p. 169. ISBN 9780820481852.
  35. ^ "Mahmood Mamdani | Department of Political Science". polisci.columbia.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  36. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1 January 1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9780852553992.
  37. ^ a b c Mamdani, Mahmood (1 January 1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. p. 18. ISBN 9780852553992.
  38. ^ Clapham, Chris (1997). "Review: Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism by Mahmood Mamdani'". Royal Institute of International Affairs. 73: 606.
  39. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1 January 1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. ISBN 9780852553992.
  40. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1 January 1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. p. 37. ISBN 9780852553992.
  41. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1 January 1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. pp. 16–18. ISBN 9780852553992.
  42. ^ "Zohran Mamdani's father's remark about suicide bombers comes under scrutiny". Newsweek. 11 July 2025. Retrieved 12 July 2025.
  43. ^ Murray, Conor (11 July 2025). "Mahmood Mamdani's Work Does Not Advocate Violence, Expert Says". Forbes. Retrieved 12 July 2025.
  44. ^ Goldberg, Emma (29 June 2025). "The High-Profile Parents Who Shaped an Upstart". The New York Times. p. A19. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
  45. ^ "Roti and roses". africasacountry.com. 19 May 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  46. ^ "Zohran Mamdani Won Big. 8 Insiders Lay Out What That Means for the Democratic Party". Politico. 25 June 2025.
  47. ^ Sen, Manjula (25 January 2009). "She interviewed me, we fell in love almost instantly". The Telegraph. Calcutta. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2013. Ten years ago my mother wondered what happened to the nice boy who prayed, fasted, read the Koran. 'Now, look at you. Nobody would know you were Muslim.'" Mamdani retorted he was a Muslim when Muslims are persecuted. She called after 9/11. "Now, you must be a Muslim every day. I smiled. She had the last word."
  48. ^ "Mamdani rejoins UCT". www.news.uct.ac.za. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  49. ^ "UCT Book Award". University of Cape Town. Archived from the original on 4 April 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  50. ^ "GDS Eminent Scholar Award Past Recipients". www.isanet.org. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  51. ^ "Professor Mahmood Mamdani Recognized with Lenfest Award". School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. 15 April 2011. Archived from the original on 21 December 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  52. ^ "Prof. Mamdani Is To Be Honored As "Scholar of the Year" At The Annual African Diaspora Awards NYC". MISR. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  53. ^ "Elections to the British Academy celebrate the diversity of UK research". British Academy. 2 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  54. ^ "Mahmood Mamdani conferred with an honorary doctorate". University of Johannesburg. May 2010. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  55. ^ "Speech delivered by Professor Prof Mahmood Mamdani at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa" (PDF). CODESRIA. 25 May 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  56. ^ "Remarks on receipt of Honorary Doctorate at Addis Ababa University" (PDF). CODESRIA. 24 July 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  57. ^ "Media Statement: UKZN To honour leading South Africans and women graduates excel". University of KwaZulu-Natal. 12 April 2012. Archived from the original (MS Word) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  58. ^ "Address on Receiving an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Kwazulu Natal" (PDF). Columbia University. 24 April 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  59. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (2011). From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain (Second ed.). Pambazuka Press. ISBN 9781906387570.
  60. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1976). Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 9780853453789.
  61. ^ Mamdan, Mohamad (1984). Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda. Africa World Press. ISBN 9780865430297.
  62. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691027937.
  63. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (28 January 2020). When Victims Become Killers. Princeton University Press. doi:10.1515/9780691193830. ISBN 978-0-691-19383-0.
  64. ^ "African Books Collective: Understanding the Crisis in Kivu". www.africanbookscollective.com. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  65. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (2002). "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism". American Anthropologist. 104 (3): 766–775. doi:10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.766. ISSN 0002-7294. JSTOR 3567254.
  66. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (2007). Scholars in the Marketplace. The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989-2005. Codesria. ISBN 9782869782013.
  67. ^ "Saviors and Survivors by Mahmood Mamdani: 9780385525961 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  68. ^ "Define and Rule — Mahmood Mamdani". Harvard University Press. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  69. ^ Mamdani, Mahmood (2000). Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on the Politics of Rights and Culture. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-23498-0.
  70. ^ "African Books Collective: Uganda Studies in Labour". www.africanbookscollective.com. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
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