Mr. Vajpayee, aged 77, is sometimes denigrated both in India and abroad as an indecisive and ageing poet turned politician. But he has demonstrated gumption that loses nothing in comparison with Mrs. Indira Gandhi, India's "iron lady" of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He made India a nuclear power, fended of punitive US and Western sanctions, won a border war with Pakistan at Kargil in Kashmir and is currently fighting the global war against terrorism with boldness unprecedented in Indian politics. He is staring down Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf over terrorism encouraged by Pakistan's military and religious establishments in Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

He is skillfully creating a situation where Pakistan can no longer bleed India's economic and military power through terrorism in Kashmir without facing US and Western wrath. He has also succeeded in making Washington recognize that India is likely to be a more stable and sensible long-term partner in South Asia than Pakistan. All of these achievements are fragile, but they are extraordinary because they create the foundations for a new, stable and mutually beneficial relationship between India and the US for the first time since India's creation in 1947.

Mr. Vajpayee has also overcome vicious challenges by his political opponents especially in the opposition Congress Party, which is finding it hard to digest removal from power after being the dominant political presence in the subcontinent for some 120 years. The Congress has been reduced to hitting below the belt through such tactics as obstructing the work of government through unrestrained mud-slinging, walk outs and shouting matches in both houses of Indian parliament.

After rout in national elections three years ago, the Congress regained power in the majority of India's States, but remains a weakling in Delhi, the seat of national power. Mr. Vajpayee has cleverly used Washington's global war against terrorism since September 11, 2001 to mass Indian troops along the borders with Pakistan, effectively muzzling his Congress party opponents who cannot afford to appear unpatriotic by weakening the government in wartime.

In an effort to regain lost ground, Congress parliamentarians tried to bring down Mr. Vajpayee's regime after Hindu-Muslim riots in India's Gujarat State during which about 2000 people were killed, two thirds of whom were Muslim. But the BJP-led government in Gujarat did not fall and the tactics of Congressmen in national parliament won little sympathy around the nation because they blocked parliament's work for 10 days while doing little to ease the suffering of the 120,000 people made homeless by the rioting.

The troubles seem to have cemented the NDA coalition, rather than weakening it although Mr. Vajpayee's health is currently a cause for concern. The Congress party is in disarray without a clear strategy to win power in Delhi and is led by the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi who may not be acceptable to many Indians in a face-off with Mr. Vajpayee. Whatever his shortcomings in governance and management, the Prime Minister's credentials as a tough-minded patriot are unquestioned.

The economy could yet become Mr. Vajpayee's Achilles heel. GDP has slowed to 5.4% from 7% in the mid-1990s and is burdened by government deficits of 10% of GDP and the lowest industrial growth in over a decade. But India's foreign-exchange reserves have hit a record of more than $50 billion and inflation is just 2%. With reserves of 58 million tons, India is more than self sufficient in food although some of it is priced too high for the poorest Indians. To improve matters, agricultural prices and subsidies are being reviewed downwards.

Information technology exports are India's success story. In spite of the tech-crash in the US, India's IT growth was a respectable 30% in 2001, down from 50% the previous year. IT sales topped $13.5 billion, including $6 billion in exports. They could reach $18 billion if the US economy, which buys two-thirds of India's IT exports, picks up to a healthy pace. But at $2.5 billion, foreign direct investment remains well below the government's target of $10 billion a year. Electricity and energy problems and India's inadequate physical infrastructure also continue to impede growth. A bright spot is the government's fairly successful program of privatization of public sector enterprises, although it is opposed by both the far left and the far right.

The next national elections are due before third-quarter 2004 and the BJP will find it hard to increase its strength without economic success that reaches far enough down to improve living conditions for the poor. The various categories of poor people taken together make up nearly half of India's 1.1 billion-strong population. In any case, India will be ruled by coalitions in the foreseeable future but they may be less conflict-ridden if either the BJP or the Congress wins enough seats to strongly dominate its partners.

BJP is moving quickly to maturity as a ruler but it may lose power to a Congress-led alliance in 2004, if it fails to manage the tussles for influence within its own coalition. Its remaining two years in office are likely to be ones of stability, if not of prosperity.