Manali Desai is a Reader, and a Fellow of Newnham College in the University of Cambridge. In 2020, she assumed chair as Head of the Department of Sociology, the first woman of colour to lead a Cambridge department. Her current research is a comparative qualitative project titled Gendered Violence and Urban Transformation in India and South Africa. We speak to her on gendered violence, party politics and colonial histories. The conversation is moderated by Pratichi Majumdar, a PhD student in the Centre for Studies in Social Systems (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and a Research Associate in the ongoing project on Gendered Violence and Urban Transformation in India and South Africa.