Dear Reader Last week, when Mulayam Singh Yadav died, India's polity lost one of the politicians who, in the turbulent decade of the 1990s, helped open it up into a wider arena, a more interesting place. Yadav became the face of the Mandal revolution in Uttar Pradesh, which did not just pose a counterpoint to Mandir, the other big political movement of the '90s, but which together with it, challenged the already fraying consensus of the Congress-led one-party dominant system. Most obituaries have spoken of how he did this while keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground and nurturing a wide range of relationships till the very end. Reporting on elections in UP, when he was still an active campaigner, I was struck by the SP rally, more particularly the SP stage - the diminutive figure of Netaji seemed difficult to spot in the melee of leaders and partymen, until he took the mic and began mumbling into it. This picture was starkly different from the stage setting in the rallies of other parties, be it the solo dominance of a remote Mayawati on the neat and uncluttered BSP stage, or the orderly hierarchies of on-stage lineups in Congress and BJP political meetings. When he spoke, Netaji sometimes interrupted his speech to directly address a man or a woman in his audience, inquiring about a school-going child now, a sick relative then. Stories abound in UP about how he knew people by their names in most villages in the state, how he established a personal connect and came back to it. It was also said that when the SP came to power under Netaji in UP, the state got one chief minister plus 20-25 mini-chief ministers - a pointer to Netaji's encouragement of local leadership, the space he made for them in his party. And yet, it is also true that if the SP still finds it difficult to defend itself against accusations of being a party for and of the Yadavs, or if its Muslim voter feels a sense of claustrophobia in UP, and if the extended Mulayam Singh Yadav family seems to have an overbearing imprint in its leadership, that too must be traced back to the politics of Netaji. Even as the Mulayam-led SP helped open up the polity, it wasn't able to keep alive the radical impulse or institutionalise wider solidarities. Eventually, it seemed to script the dead-ends in its own story. The Akhilesh Yadav-led party now has the challenge of confronting the SP's blind alleys and finding a way out, in times of a much more unforgiving one-party dominance than the one Netaji helped take down. Today, the BJP has replaced the Congress at the head of the one-party dominant system. And unlike the Congress, the BJP has no pretension or ambition to being an umbrella party, whose edges are soft and fuzzy. The BJP is the unrelentingly aggressive winner that seeks to take all, leaving nothing at all for its opponents. So, what and where might the cracks lie - that, in a diverse democracy, are vital for letting in the light and the air - in the second one-party dominant system presided over by the BJP? As Netaji exits the political stage, the question is: Will the dominance of one party remain as impermeable and overwhelming as it seems to be, or will forces such as the one he became a face for in the '90s, rise to drill holes in it? For now, the political opposition is in a state of decline and disrepair, lacking in big ideas like Mandal. For now, it could even be said, the cracks show up, now and then, in non-political domains. On Friday, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court set aside the conviction of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 by the sessions court in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, for alleged links with the banned Communist Party of of India (Maoist) - this case has a key resonance in the ruling establishment's recurring invocation of the "urban Naxals" political spectre. The trials of Saibaba and the others were null and void, the High Court said, in the absence of a valid sanction under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. The matter is now in the Supreme Court, which has suspended the HC order. In effect, the HC said that due procedure is important, it cannot be disregarded because of the alleged crime's supposed "gravity", or be separated from the "merits" of the case. And that even and especially when it involves a law like the UAPA, every safeguard and filter is crucial. In the court's words: "Sanction serves the salutary object of providing safeguard to the accused from unwarranted prosecution and the agony and trauma of trial, and in the context of the stringent provisions of the UAPA, is an integral facet of due process of law". Regardless of what happens next in the apex court in a politically loaded case, the HC's is a valuable intervention. Or a crack which may or may not let in more light, more air. Till next week, Vandita | 
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