By J Sri Raman There is no word from Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani to explicitly recant on their recent rhetoric over the "India-Pakistan peace moves".
These moves were no more convincing to many, including this columnist, than an Adolf Hitler announcement abjuring war may have been There are no fairy tale endings in real life especially in the political life of a country.
Parties can come together to form a ruling coalition, after much strife and struggle, but seldom do they live happily ever after.
The problems of the new alliance in New Delhi are, thus, nothing new.
What is less realised is that witches and other vile creatures, vanquished at the end of the fairy tale, don't stay put in the netherworld forever.
Nor are those dislodged from power through democratic means going to accept defeat and walk into the sunset without further ado.
In less than three weeks since the declaration of election results of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of India's Parliament), there have been a series of notices served by the rejected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and associates that they are not going to accept and abide by the electoral mandate, in any but a technical sense.
The BJP, of course, is going to sit in the opposition in parliament.
It, however, has left no doubt about its determination to demonstrate that the peoples' mandate makes no difference.
It has made this point in the most shocking and sordid manner through its response to the inevitable outcome of the mandate _ the appointment of Sonia Gandhi as the country's prime minister.
No sooner had President A P J Abdul Kalam summoned Mrs Gandhi, as the head of the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, to discuss the formation of a new government than the BJP raised a banner of rebellion against the verdict.
Three of the stranger specimens from the BJP menagerie were unleashed, and they launched a wild assault on parliamentary democracy as India has known it.
Govindacharya, former BJP ideologue, exiled a couple of years ago from the party for candidly describing outgoing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as a 'mask', surfaced from nowhere to announce a 'self-respect movement'.
This was to oppose the ascent to the highest office of a 'foreigner', as Italian-born Sonia Gandhi was called despite her full Indian citizenship and her record as the leader of the opposition in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
A wilder attack was mounted by former Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who ought to have been more aware of the norms of the Westminster-model democracy of Indian adoption.
She threatened to cut off her tresses, wear white, sleep on the floor and survive on green gram until Mrs Gandhi withdrew from the race.
The attempt to rouse obscurantist passions was obvious.
Uma Bharati, saffron-clad chief minister of Madhya Pradesh joined in and spoke of resigning on the day of a 'foreign' takeover.
The media, not embarrassed at all about its exit polls proving so fake, claimed that the development had deeply distressed Mr Vajpayee.
As I write, however, we hear that he has broken his silence on the issue to say that he, too, was of the same opinion as the infamous three.
Mrs Gandhi, according to the same media, has silenced the three and the rest of her critics by her 'stunning sacrifice', rejecting the premiership offered to her on a platter.
This may be true, for the time being.
The more important point, however, is that the Swarajs and Bharatis of Indian politics, the fascists who had become more than a fringe over the past few years, have tasted blood.
They have seen and shown that they have a power beyond parliamentary mandates.
Mr Vajpayee was switching over to a less saintly-looking role after a session of the BJP policymakers and parliamentarians, where not he, but former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani was chosen as the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP has not let anyone miss the significance of the choice.
Party spokespersons and media mouthpieces have been at pains to point out that Mr Advani was the man who led the party from a two-seat nadir to the status of the main opposition in parliament in the early 90s and that he had achieved this through his Ayodhya movement that culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the edifice of secularism.
There is no word from Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani to explicitly recant on their recent rhetoric over the 'India-Pakistan peace moves'.
These moves were no more convincing to many, including this columnist, than an Adolf Hitler announcement abjuring war may have been.
The coming months, however, may see the BJP and its camp returning to the militarism and jingoism with renewed vigour.
What makes it all a matter of graver concern is the absence of hope for an effective response from the Congress and its coalition to the BJP counter-offensive.
_(The writer is a journalist and peace activist based in Chennai).
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