And yet the swadeshiwallahs have united as one man against the Prime Minister's insistence on keeping to the Cabinet's word on the IRA Bill. Perhaps they don't care? Perhaps they are misguided enough to cut their nose to spite their face? In order to have their government act in the way they choose, perhaps they are willing to do things that spell doom for their government? Or perhaps they are plain incapable of grasping the import of what they are doing.

Like it or not, after Tuesday's fracas, insurance liberalisation has become a symbol of too many things for the Sangh Parivar to make political football of it. If it keeps going the way it has in thelast 48 hours or so, it will send several messages clear as light to the people. The first, perhaps most important, would be that this party learns nothing.

After a reprimand from voters that was as subtle as a slap in the face, if this government proceeds without losing any time to put its dissensions on public display, it cannot be deserving of much sympathy. Vajpayee does deserve sympathy for having the misfortune of leading this ragtag bunch in which everyone is an expert on everything and everyone has an opinion on everything. But ultimately the onus is on him not to let his government take recourse to fake legalities such as the need to refer the Bill to the Standing Committee of Parliament, and put off the trouble for now.

Worse for the party, this time round there is not even the fig-leaf of difficult allies being difficult or a cussed opposition making trouble. Not that that would have been unjust the BJP did not hesitate to embarrass P. Chidambaram for the sake of making political capital. Buton insurance, the BJP stands quite alone, exposed, vulnerable. Hiding behind rigid legality -- and false legality at that, as our report today shows -- will not help.

The whole thing is under too close a scrutiny now for the government to get away with clutching at such straws as it can find. It should not even try. What has Vajpayee to lose by standing up to his party except to send out the message that, like Margaret Thatcher in a different context, he is not for turning? Standing up to the bullies in his party will make his life easier not harder in future, and certainly it will win him appreciation from an electorate which is more concerned with his ability to govern efficaciously than with the goodness of his heart, which it does not doubt.

As things stand, the government could not have done better if it had set out to indicate that it had learned not one lesson from its first eight months and the voters' snub to it. This is a test case for the BJP's ability to get on with its work. Its troublemakersshould take note and its leaders refuse to bow to them.