# Seeing Individuals, Not Categories: A Critique of Collectivist Thinking in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala **URL:** **By** Maria Giménez Cavallo, Jo Ann Cavallo **Published:** August 19, 2026 --- Maria and Jo Ann Cavallo examine the individualist and entrepreneurial themes in Mira Nair's 1991 film _Mississippi Masala _while also looking at the film's portrayal of collectivism as violent and adversarial. [Embedded content](https://youtu.be/1g720iWbxI0?si=mExpZUzynRAMK1ah) > **Editor’s Note** > > **Libertarian Lens on Film** is a column that explores world cinema through the frameworks of liberty and Austrian economics. Together, this mother-​daughter duo shares their distinct yet complementary perspectives on movies through the lens of libertarianism. _Mississippi Masala _(1991),[1](#_edn1) the second fictional feature film by Indian-born filmmaker Mira Nair, offers a multilayered exploration of the tension between collectivist thinking and individual identity through the story of an Indian Ugandan family expelled under Idi Amin and later resettled in the American South. This review reads the film through a libertarian interpretive lens, examining how rigid categories—such as race, ethnicity, nationality, and class—shape perception and social interaction at the expense of individual singularity. Through its double plot in Uganda and Mississippi, the film ultimately demonstrates that moving beyond such collectivist reductions is both profoundly challenging and ethically imperative. The opening sequence situates these concerns in historical reality. After his 1971 coup, Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of Uganda’s Asian population, classifying them as “foreigners” regardless of their birthplace. The film opens on November 7, 1972, the deadline for departure, as radio broadcasts justify the forced removal of “the Asians” as a way to “pave the way for the indigenous people of Uganda to control the economy.” A later flashback shows a televised speech in which Amin reduces social life to a binary opposition: “Africans are poor. Asians are rich. Asians are sabotaging the economy of Uganda.” The dictatorship’s control over public discourse permeates everyday life. In the streets, youths harass departing Asians, shouting “last day!” while thrusting newspapers toward them bearing inflammatory headlines such as “Domination by Asians Ends.” The pervasiveness of the propaganda is further underscored by a choir of schoolchildren performing a nationalist song that bids farewell to the Asians and praises “our good general Idi Amin / For bringing wealth back to our nation land.” And yet, alongside political pronouncements, a media blitz, and youth mobilization all reinforcing the image of a country divided into opposing blocs, an entirely different picture emerges when it comes to individual relationships. As the camera moves through scenes of departure, it captures intimate moments of farewell between Asian and African Ugandans—exchanges of gifts, embraces, tears, and other gestures of mutual care—that reveal personal bonds transcending imposed social divisions. The contrast of political rhetoric and real human connection exposes the artificiality of group-based categorizations, showing how they obscure lived complexity. The film imagines the journey of one such departing family: Jay Loha, his wife Kinnu, and their six-year-old daughter Mina. As Mina later recounts, Jay’s father had been brought from India to Uganda by British colonial authorities to help build the railways and, like many others from the Asian community, he chose to remain. Jay’s deep identification with Uganda as the country of his birth, together with his devastation at being uprooted, expresses a conception of belonging grounded in lived experience rather than ethnic origin. Yet when he insists that Uganda is “my home,” his Black African friend Okelo replies, “Not anymore, Jay, Africa is for Africans . . . _Black_ Africans.” Later on, Jay tells his daughter that it had been Okelo’s statement—placing group identity above their long-standing friendship—that finally persuaded him to leave: “After thirty-four years, that’s what it all came down to—the color of my skin. That’s why we left. Not because of Idi Amin.” Yet there are also signs that Okelo’s attachment to the Loha family runs deep. The only item we see Kinnu taking with her from their home is a photograph of Okelo and Mina together. When Okelo arrives at the town center to see the family off, a distraught Mina calls him “uncle” and tears roll down his face as he waves good-bye. Jay, however, is so hurt that he boards the bus without acknowledging his friend. The violence underpinning collectivist ideology is made explicit when police stop the family’s bus to conduct a random search. As one officer points his weapon at Jay, another forces Kinnu off the bus. Jay and Mina look on helplessly as the policeman terrorizes Kinnu: kicking her suitcase, ordering her to open it, flinging Jay’s photograph onto the ground, and ultimately pressing his rifle to her neck. In the end, the officer uses his rifle to rip off her gold necklace. Shaken, Kinnu returns to the bus clutching the photograph of her husband. This excruciating scene lays bare, in visceral terms, how reducing people to a category strips them of their humanity and allows others to justify crimes against them. The narrative then shifts eighteen years forward to Mississippi, where the family has resettled. Mina, now twenty-four, works in her cousin Anil’s motel, cleaning rooms and assisting at the reception desk. Kinnu, having taken a loan from the same relative, runs her own liquor store. Jay, who is also presumably employed at the motel, appears primarily occupied with his petition to the Ugandan government for the restoration of his property and citizenship. Although the establishment of a new regime had initially raised his hopes, he has not received a reply after five years of writing letters. His persistent desire to return “home” underscores how Uganda, for him, was not merely a place of residence but a constitutive part of his identity. > This excruciating scene lays bare, in visceral terms, how reducing people to a category strips them of their humanity and allows others to justify crimes against them. Although the overt political violence depicted in Uganda is absent in Mississippi, other insidious forms of group-based thinking persist. The film’s central conflict arises from the romantic relationship between Mina and Demetrius, an African American man. When Anil discovers the couple together at a seaside resort, he bursts into their motel room shouting, “You leave our women alone!,” revealing a possessive conception of community in which women are treated as markers of group identity rather than autonomous individuals. Anil’s physical aggression toward Demetrius sparks an altercation that requires police intervention. The incident quickly triggers backlash from the Indian American community. One gossiping woman remarks: “Can you imagine dumping Harry Patel for a Black?” Whereas the wealthy Indian American bachelor is individualized through the use of his name, Demetrius is reduced to a racial category. Anil and fellow motel owners go so far as to boycott Demetrius’s carpet cleaning business, placing it under severe financial strain. The news of Mina and Demetrius’s relationship elicits a reaction within the African American community as well. Demetrius’s younger brother Dexter tells him about the negative comments of his peers, who quip that “your brother thought he got himself a white chick.” His partner Tyrone advises him to “leave them fuckin’ foreigners alone,” insisting that “they ain’t nothing but trouble.” Demetrius’s ex-girlfriend goes so far as to claim that he has “let down” not only his family and community but also his “entire race,” remarking, “I don’t see no shortage of Black women around.” These reactions suggest how readily relationships are interpreted through categorical lenses across different communities. Against this backdrop, Mina and Demetrius embody an alternative, grounded in mutual recognition. Mina’s independent outlook is inseparable from her willingness to encounter others as individuals rather than as types. When her mother asks what she knows about Demetrius’s family, she replies, “This is America, Ma, no one cares.” The force of her response lies in her rejection of the idea that a person should be defined by group belonging—even when that group is one’s own family. At the same time, Mina’s individuality is not separate from her cultural identity, but integral to it. She describes herself to Demetrius as a “mix masala” to signal her layered, hybrid identity as a woman of Indian descent who has grown up in Uganda and England before moving to the United States. In culinary terms, _masala_ refers to a mixture of spices, each retaining its distinct properties while contributing to a richer, more complex whole. The concept of _masala_ thus challenges rigid classifications, suggesting that cultural affiliations need not exist as oppositional categories but can instead interact and evolve, deepening rather than diminishing one’s identity. While Mina inhabits multiple inheritances, she also remains open to other cultural practices: she wears a Bob Marley T-shirt, line dances in a blues bar, and eats with chopsticks while dining out in a Chinese restaurant. In this sense, she also embodies a characteristically American form of identity, shaped by multiple affiliations and diverse origins. Her self-understanding resists reduction to any single group identity, echoing Ludwig von Mises’s observation that “man is not the member of one group only and does not appear on the scene of human affairs solely in the role of a member of one definite group.”[2](#_edn2) Demetrius’s individuality is perhaps most evident in his entrepreneurial initiative. He has established his own carpet-cleaning business, positioning himself within a small-scale service economy, and taken out a bank loan to purchase his van, a decision that underscores his willingness to assume risk in pursuit of future reward. The van’s slogan—“Your dirt is our bread and butter”—reflects both wit and marketing ingenuity, transforming routine household maintenance into a reliable source of income. In this respect, Demetrius exemplifies how market actors carve out niches, differentiate themselves through branding, and navigate the uncertainties of self-employment. His success is recognized by his Aunt Rose, who speaks warmly to Mina about both his achievements and his sense of familial duty: “Doing so well now, with his own business and all, makes me right proud of him.” Rose explains that he gave up the opportunity to attend college in order to remain at home and support his father after his mother’s death. Demetrius also assumes a quasi-paternal role toward his younger brother Dexter, trying to keep him off the streets and urging him to exercise greater self-discipline. Although his given name carries a classical resonance through its Greek origin, both his brother and his business partner refer to him as “D-Money,” a nickname that playfully points to a persona defined not by inherited tradition but by commercial acumen. Significantly, among Demetrius’s customers are Indian American motel owners—including Mina’s cousin and his associates—highlighting how market exchange fosters practical interdependence, as relations are structured through reciprocity and mutual benefit. Their collaboration persists until Demetrius’s relationship with Mina triggers categorical thinking in the form of in-group/out-group racial boundaries, which results in the severing of their business ties. Even before the couple’s romance disrupts their respective communities, the film explores how readily communal solidarity can slide into reductive groupism. Early on, when Mina accidentally hits Demetrius’s van while driving Anil’s car—the incident through which the couple first meets—Anil and his associates initially fear that Demetrius will sue for damages. A fellow Indian American motel owner, Kanti, who also does business with Demetrius, attempts to pre-empt such an outcome by approaching Demetrius and his partner Tyrone directly. He begins his speech singling out Black people through the trope of superior athletic ability: _“_Your people are very good at sports, no?” He then shifts into a rhetoric of pan-racial solidarity that collapses all non-white groups into a single category defined in opposition to whiteness: “Black, brown, yellow, Mexican, Puerto Rican, all the same. As long as you’re not white, it means you are colored. Isn’t that so?” Kanti then takes his point one step further by adding an imperative: “All us people of color must stick together.” This appeal to collective identity relies on a form of categorical thinking that erases individual specificity in favor of broad racial totalization. In the aftermath of the ensuing rupture, Tyrone later recalls the exchange with bitter irony, repeating Kanti’s assertion—“United we stand. Divided we fall”—in order to expose its rhetorical hypocrisy. The film carefully distinguishes a collectivist mindset from cultural belonging. While it vividly depicts how group identities can harden into oppositional binaries—African versus Asian, “Colored” versus White, or Indian versus Black—it does not reject cultural traditions themselves. On the contrary, it presents them as sources of meaning, continuity, and shared joy, provided they do not impose restrictive norms on individuals. Scenes of communal celebration—from Anil’s wedding to Willie Ben’s birthday backyard barbecue to the line dance at the blues bar—underscore that cultural practices, while rooted in specific histories, express universal human desires for connection and belonging. In addition, recognizing each other as individuals does not detach Mina and Demetrius from the imprint of the historical and communal contexts that have shaped them—she as the daughter of Asian Ugandans displaced by dictatorship, he as a member of an African American community marked by the legacies of segregation in the American South. The point is not to ignore history, but rather to avoid identity-based reduction, which collapses persons into undifferentiated group categories and denies their agency. Despite _Mississippi Masala_’s compelling exploration of the hazards of collectivist thinking—from the extreme measures of Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda to the persistent prejudices that surface in Mississippi—the film itself is not entirely free from the tendencies it critiques. Whereas the Indian and African American communities are portrayed with greater emotional and narrative complexity, including secondary characters with both positive and negative traits, the white secondary characters are rendered in a uniformly negative manner. This pattern begins with the figure of an obese white shopper who looks askance at Mina’s cart filled with gallons of milk. Customers at the restaurant where Demetrius’s father Willie Ben works appear inebriated, tossing napkins at one table and consuming a bottle of Jack Daniels at another. Even a quiet elderly couple is not spared contempt: after they ask to take their _bread_ home in a doggie bag, we learn that they “sat there all night and ‘forgot’ to leave a tip.” At the motel reception, an overweight male customer argues over the hourly rate while his female escort stands nearby, and a group of teenagers later creates an alcohol-fueled disturbance. Throughout the film white characters appear in reductive terms: from a self-satisfied bank manager to a prejudiced motel owner who wants to “send them \[i.e., the ‘Indians’\] back to the reservation where they belong,” to a sleazy lawyer who attempts to intimidate Anil. Wille Ben’s condescending employer, who had earlier boasted that her husband had put in a good word for Demetrius’s bank loan, later withdraws her support because of his relationship with Mina. Nor are authority figures exempt: a police officer breaking up the fight between Demetrius and Anil physically manhandles and verbally humiliates Mina, threatening to arrest her for “whoring.” Even when not appearing onscreen, white characters are disparaged through second-hand accounts accusing them of bias and, in one instance, through explicitly violent language directed at them. When Dexter tells his companions how he typed “kill the crackers”—a derogatory slang term for white people—on a computer screen and then couldn’t delete it, his story is met with laughter and apparent complicity by his peers. This raises a tension within the film’s critique of collectivist thinking, insofar as “whiteness” is treated as a monolithic negative category. The film offers little acknowledgment that so-called whiteness in the United States encompasses distinct ethnic histories and immigrant trajectories that, while not shaped by slavery or mass expulsion, were nonetheless often marked by extreme poverty, exclusion, social marginalization, and, in some cases, indentured servitude. > In addition, recognizing each other as individuals does not detach Mina and Demetrius from the imprint of the historical and communal contexts that have shaped them. Yet this limitation also underscores the broader force of the film’s critique. The persistently derogatory depiction of white characters—whether inadvertent or intentional—demonstrates how easily even a critical perspective can slip into collectivist thinking. At the same time, the film repeatedly pushes against such essentialist reasoning. When Jay’s family gathers to pray, the prayer is: “O Lord, grant peace to every living creature under the sun.” In response to the remark that “in Uganda, he was the champion defender of Blacks, but the same Blacks kicked him out,” Jay refuses to endorse collective blame, replying: “Cruelty has no color.” He also complicates any simple assignment of moral responsibility by alluding to the role of Asian Ugandans within the colonial social and economic order that preceded Idi Amin’s regime, many of whom occupied comparatively privileged positions that set them apart from segments of the Black African population. Ultimately, the film’s critique of collectivist thinking—and its affirmation of the incommensurable worth of each individual—is brought home most powerfully in the conclusion of the film’s double storyline. Since the narrative drama is driven by Mina’s assertion of her individuality and refusal to conform to the expectations of her community, it is not surprising that in the end she proactively takes charge of her own life. She borrows Anil’s car without permission and tracks down Demetrius. Despite his initial reticence, she persuades him that they can build a future together, supporting themselves through their entrepreneurial labor: “I could be your partner. I know how to clean rooms.” As the credits roll, Mina and Demetrius, dressed in vibrant Indian and African clothing, embrace and kiss in a series of images that signal not only romantic fulfilment but also the possibility of a life together beyond the rigidity of historically entrenched divisions. While Mina’s story is resolved through her personal initiative, Jay’s resolution entails a physical journey back to Uganda. After many letters of inquiry regarding his claim, he is finally granted a court hearing. This development stirs memories that fill in crucial gaps in the narrative. A flashback shows Jay being pulled from a bar with his friends and forced into the trunk of a car, then held in a crowded jail cell, where Okelo procures his release by bribing a guard. Although the guard warns that freeing Jay will put him at risk if discovered, he nevertheless accepts the substantial sum Okelo offers. Another flashback repeats Okelo’s blunt declaration that Uganda is for “Black Africans.” This statement soon takes on new meaning, however, when Jay visits a school in Kampala to inquire about Okelo, who had taught there before Jay’s departure.[3](#_edn3) There he learns that Okelo died around 1972, “because of all the troubles”: he one day “disappeared,” and his body was later discovered. The film thus raises the possibility that he was murdered because of his friendship with Jay. In light of this tragic news, Okelo’s earlier words can now be reinterpreted as a strategic attempt to persuade Jay and his family to leave for their own safety. Far from asserting ethnic exclusivism, Okelo appears to have placed Jay’s survival above all else, acting in direct opposition to the collectivist thinking the statement seemed to endorse. The fact that Jay left only because of these words lends the revelation a tragic poignancy: the message that seemed to cast him out was likely the very thing that saved him, while the man who delivered it appears to have paid for his act of loyalty with his life. While in Kampala, Jay returns to his former residence, now abandoned. The once-pristine terrace with its cultivated flowers is now overrun with weeds. The view in the distance may remain unchanged in its natural beauty, but the ground upon which he stands is no longer the home he left behind. Jay subsequently informs Kinnu that he is withdrawing his lawsuit and returning to Mississippi. “Home is where the heart is,” he writes, “and my heart is with you.” After the various evocations of “home” throughout the film, this statement marks Jay’s realization that belonging is ultimately rooted in relationships rather than geography. While the phrasing risks sentimentality, it nonetheless perfectly captures the fundamental idea that one’s sense of place is ultimately interior and relational. Kampala itself is also presented as changed since Jay’s departure, and in a more positive way. As Jay wanders through a town square, he pauses to listen to music and watch people dancing, a festive moment that evokes a sense of communal vitality and inclusivity. A Ugandan baby held by his father instantly connects with Jay, smiling and reaching out to touch his face, and Jay instinctively takes the baby into his arms. This tender moment contrasts with the earlier political conflict by foregrounding an immediate, unmediated human connection. The child’s spontaneous gesture also demonstrates that he bears no relation to the violence of Idi Amin’s expulsion decades earlier, underscoring that the moral burden of history cannot be transferred onto new generations, who need not inherit the animosities or guilt of the past. The film’s final shot shows Jay embracing the baby, a powerful image that articulates a mode of relation that refutes collectivist categorization by affirming a shared humanity. The film’s title, _Mississippi Masala_, encapsulates the possibilities opened up by cultural blending. At the same time, as discussed above, the film also powerfully illustrates the dangers that arise when culture and ethnicity are fixed into rigid systems of classification. From a libertarian perspective, Ron Paul observes that “racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups.” He continues, “the true antidote to racism is liberty \[. . .\] which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity,” adding that “racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.”[4](#_edn4) These reflections help illuminate what the film dramatizes: how the reduction of persons to collective categories—whether in the violent expulsion of Ugandan Asians or in everyday prejudice—distorts human relationships and forecloses the possibility of genuine encounters. Mira Nair’s commitment to representing these dynamics was grounded in historical experience. In preparing the film, she consulted scholars and members of the Ugandan Asian community, including Mahmood Mamdani, whose own personal account of expulsion “fueled the details.”[5](#_edn5) Nair’s research had an unexpected personal consequence as well: she and Mamdani fell in love and were married. Incidentally, their son, Zohran Mamdani, is the current mayor of New York City. Given our libertarian reading of Nair’s film, we cannot resist noting the irony of Mamdani’s political program, which explicitly advances a socialist-collectivist vision—one that elevates collectivist precepts over individual freedom as a governing ideal. Indeed, in his inaugural address, Mamdani openly vowed to “replace the frigidity of individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”[6](#_edn6) Unfortunately, many critics of libertarianism misconstrue individualism as a form of self-centeredness and isolation. Yet, as Wanjiru Njoya has explained, “the ideal of individual liberty has less to do with atomistic or self-regarding character traits, and more to do with independence from collective control. Individualism in the American tradition represents the conviction that each individual is the author of his own life . . . . The individual does not stand apart and remote from society. On the contrary, . . . it is through the interaction of free men that free societies flourish.”[7](#_edn7) This understanding draws from Ludwig von Mises’s methodological claim that “a social collective has no existence and reality outside of the individual members’ actions.”[8](#_edn8) Read together, these perspectives clarify that the film’s critique of collectivist thinking is not a denial of social life or cultural belonging but a rejection of reducing persons to group classifications that efface their individuality. Within this framework, _Mississippi Masala_ ultimately defines individualism not as withdrawal from others but as a mode of recognition grounded in the willingness to encounter each person in their singularity. Its critique of collectivist thinking—whether in moments of historical violence or in the subtler prejudices of everyday life—rests on the insight that such thinking ignores the complexity of human experience and reduces individuals to stereotypes or group labels. By contrast, the film’s closing vision—centered on friendship, romantic love, and unmediated human connection—affirms the uniqueness of individuals. _Mississippi Masala_ thus moves beyond rigid classification toward a more expansive understanding of human plurality, one in which people may inhabit multiple cultural worlds while remaining, first and foremost, distinct and irreducible persons. ## Endnotes [1](#_ednref1). _Mississippi Masala_, directed by Mira Nair (Channel Four Films / Mirabai Films, 1991). [2](#_ednref2). Mises, _Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution_ (c1957, Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2007), 257. [3](#_ednref3). It may not be a coincidence that the school in the scene is the Norman Godinho Junior School. A brief internet search reveals that the school was founded by a Goan entrepreneur and “is considered one of the earliest and most influential schools linked to Goan educational philanthropy in Uganda.” This school educated many Ugandans who later became professionals and leaders. [https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/special-reports/uganda-50/gomes-the-father-of-uganda-s-gomesi-1526086](https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/special-reports/uganda-50/gomes-the-father-of-uganda-s-gomesi-1526086). [4](#_ednref4). While Ron Paul has often reiterated this notion in his speeches, these quotes are taken from “Government and Racism,” _The Answer to Racism_, April 18, 2007, [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/04/ron-paul/the-answer-to-racism/](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/04/ron-paul/the-answer-to-racism/). [5](#_ednref5). As Nair relates, “I found out about all these Indian motels all over the South; and I read an article about the Asian expulsion, a non-fiction piece, from Uganda. . . . And it was through months of work of running around Mississippi and then Uganda, Kenya, and England, interviewing exiles and finding out what really was this dream, that the story evolved.” Quoted in “Visualizing Three Continents: An Interview with Filmmaker Mira Nair, June 3, 1996,” in _Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America_, edited by Sunaina Maira and Rajini Srikanth (New York: The Asian American Writers Workshop, 1996), 128. [6](#_ednref6). William L. Anderson remarks: “As I read those words, my mind traveled to the freezing gulags in Siberia where the man idolized by the intellectual forebears of Mamdani supporters, Josef Stalin, sent innocent people to let them feel the full ‘warmth of collectivism,’ working until they died under the ideology of collectivism Mamdani now embraces, along with his followers.” “‘The Warmth of Collectivism’: Beginning the Mamdani Era,” _Mises Wire_, January 7, 2026, [https://mises.org/mises-wire/warmth-collectivism-beginning-mamdani-era](https://mises.org/mises-wire/warmth-collectivism-beginning-mamdani-era). [7.](#_ednref7) Wanjiru Njoya, “Individualism and Self-Determination in the American Tradition, _Mises Wire_, October 18, 2025, [https://mises.org/mises-wire/individualism-and-self-determination-american-tradition](https://mises.org/mises-wire/individualism-and-self-determination-american-tradition). [8](#_ednref8). Ludwig von Mises, _Human Action: A Treatise on Economics_, scholar’s ed.(Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2020), 42.