'Tis brief and mutable. --Earthly life, as described by Krishna in The Bhagavad-Gita

Politics imitated life, or Lord Krishna's vision of it, when a new government was sworn in last week in New Delhi. Atal Behari Vajpayee, 69, took an oath to become India's 11th Prime Minister, appointed an 11-member Cabinet, and vowed a "good, honest and responsive" government. What he couldn't promise was that his government would last longer than two weeks. That was the amount of time Vajpayee and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., were given by President Shankar Dayal Sharma to demonstrate that they could put together a majority in parliament.

That will be no easy task. The B.J.P. and its supporting M.P.s came out of India's April 27-May 7 general elections with 195 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha, or lower house. That is more than any other group but still well short of a majority. In his quest to lure others into his coalition, Vajpayee is vulnerable to the fickleness of Indian political parties, the elasticity of politicians' loyalty and the mutability of all things in life.

All those phenomena were on display in India's capital last week, as parties flirted, consummated and ruptured at accelerated speed. Sharma put a temporary halt to the free-for-all by making Vajpayee Prime Minister on the strength of the B.J.P.'s top electoral performance--with the proviso that he survive a vote of confidence by May 31. The President's decision, though constitutionally correct, was not likely to have a lasting impact. The B.J.P. is the party of militant Hindu nationalism, which makes it difficult for it to attract support from other, mostly secular politicians. Predicted S. Jaipal Reddy, spokesman for the Janata Dal Party: "The fall of the B.J.P. government is as certain as death."

Indian voters had their day in a general election that was considered to be the freest and cleanest since Independence, but that day has now been done. The popular verdict would be implemented in the elegant, tree-shaded, government-owned bungalows in New Delhi, which are occupied by politicians at almost no cost, over sweet tea and a smorgasbord of sour demands. Says Prabeen Singh, a development consultant: "The choices are really not choices. This can only make people more cynical about the election process."

The essential problem is that the people's verdict was decisive in only one way: it was anti-incumbent, and in modern India there is no incumbent like the Congress. The Congress Party, which had governed India for 44 of the past 48 years, turned in its worst performance ever, winning only 136 seats. Still, it ended up with an estimated 30% of the popular vote, ahead of the B.J.P.'s 20%. The B.J.P. captured more seats because its votes were concentrated in certain regions. And despite its rout, the Congress remains the second strongest party in parliament. Moreover, its leader, P.V. Narasimha Rao, apparently wants to become Prime Minister again. Many Congress members urged him to accept the election verdict and announce that the party would sit in the opposition, as did his predecessor, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1989 after a far less humiliating defeat. But Rao is no Rajiv. "The mandate is clearly against our party," says a disgruntled senior Congress leader. "But some astrologer has told Rao he'll reign for another two years, and he's doing everything he can to achieve that. It's totally disgraceful, and it'll destroy the Congress."

The forces determined to keep the B.J.P. from power got off to a slow start because of prolonged squabbling, which was perhaps inevitable considering their own considerable differences. The main players in the anti-B.J.P. coalition were the National Front--Left Front Alliance, a six-party group, which controls 111 parliamentary seats, and a clutch of regional parties that have more than 70 seats. That gives the anti-B.J.P. group fewer than 200 seats, which means that whatever government it cobbles together could not survive without some form of parliamentary support from the Congress Party's 136 legislators.

The main challenge for the anti-B.J.P. forces is to find an acceptable Prime Minister. Early in the week, the consensus candidate was Jyoti Basu, 81, leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Businessmen recoiled at the notion of a Marxist leader for an India that is on the cusp of economic revitalization. But the politicians felt otherwise: Basu has governed West Bengal State for 19 years, recently opened it to foreign investment, and is more statesmanlike than many of the other candidates. Basu, however, declined the honor, since the Communists feared that any national coalition he led might fracture and disgrace him and his party back in Calcutta. "We thought there were a lot of pitfalls," he says.

The anti-B.J.P. group then turned to V.P. Singh, a former Congressman who broke from the party in the 1980s and replaced Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1989, heading a tumultuous coalition that lasted only 11 months. Singh is ill and intensely disliked by Rao's Congress Party, which considers him a traitor. Last week he disappeared from his New Delhi home to stave off any attempts to draft him.

In some desperation, the group finally settled on H.D. Deve Gowda, 63, chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka, who was chosen because he is relatively obscure and inoffensive. Businessmen were cheered, and the Congress Party agreed to support a National Front--Left Front government run by Gowda. Wednesday's newspapers already predicted his imminent inauguration.

Gowda and his supporters, though, were a few hours too late. President Sharma invited the B.J.P. on Wednesday afternoon to form a government the following day. The leaders of the National Front--Left Front coalition met Sharma Wednesday evening in New Delhi's British-built presidential palace and complained bitterly that their coalition could at least put together a majority, which the B.J.P. could not do. Sharma said he had followed precedent by inviting the largest single party to form a government. That argument held considerable novelty value to many Indians. The front page of Thursday's Asian Age reported, "The President took the simplest decision among all his options, playing strictly by the rules and constitutional propriety. The consequence was unparalleled confusion in all parties."

Confusion is expected to reign for at least another week, perhaps as briefly as Vajpayee's tenure in office. In an attempt to hang on longer, the B.J.P. may spend its first days in power looking for political skeletons. One minister has already promised a probe into a dirty tricks operation in which Rao is thought to have play-ed a part. If they dish up enough dirt, the B.J.P. might prompt defections from the other parties. Then again, they may not at a time when everything is uncertain and mutable. --Reported by Maseeh Rahman and Dick Thompson/New Delhi