Addressing the nation during Diwali this weekend Narendra Modi paid homage to Indira Gandhi, the prime minister who imposed a state of emergency in India in the mid-1970s, the closest the world's largest democracy has come to authoritarianism. Mr Modi also mentioned the highly polarising religious dispute over the Ayodhya site, where Hindus destroyed in 1992 a mosque they believed stood on the birthplace of Lord Ram.
Both remarks were standard fare for an Indian prime minister with strongman tendencies who this year rode a wave of Hindu majoritarianism to win a second term. But absent from the address was something more pressing for investors and most ordinary Indians - just how serious is the malaise affecting India's economy and what is Mr Modi doing about it?
That the Indian economy is facing a sharp slowdown is by now well known. Gross domestic product is growing at a six-year low of 5 per cent, down from a heady pace of 8 per cent as recently as the middle of the year. Unemployment is rising, from around 6 per cent in August last year to nearly 9 per cent in mid-October, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a research group.
Some of the slowdown might stem from Mr Modi's disruptive "demonetisation" scheme in 2016 when the government cancelled high-value banknotes to reduce black money in the economy, as well as the chaotic introduction of a goods and services tax.
More worrying is tightening financial sector liquidity from a creeping shadow-banking crisis that started last year with the collapse of finance company IL&FS and is still under way. S&P Global Ratings warned last week there is "a rising risk of contagion in the financial sector", with many finance companies, some of which are themselves among India's largest bank borrowers, losing more than half their equity value in the past year. A central bank report suggests that the failure of any one of the top five shadow finance companies could trigger defaults in up to two banks.
This would require the government to step in to help depositors. But Mr Modi has narrowing space fiscally to deal with any major crisis, with a combined public sector deficit of nearly 10 per cent of GDP.
On the positive side, there is some talk in the government of tackling long-stalled structural reforms, such as overhauling the country's moribund labour and land laws - seen as essential if India is to enjoy a China-style industrial economic miracle.
To try to stimulate the economy the government has also cut corporate tax from 30 per cent to a competitive 22 per cent and has introduced a revised 15 per cent tax rate for new manufacturers. While these cuts are welcome for business they will do little in the short term to restore declining domestic demand.
If Mr Modi is worried about the economy, he is not showing it. Since returning to power, he has spent part of his ample political capital on locking down the majority Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir and stripping it of its special status.
There are signs voters are waking up. His Bharatiya Janata Party did not perform as strongly as expected in two important state elections this month: Maharashtra, which includes the industrial hub of Mumbai, and Haryana.
The time has come for Mr Modi to put his social agenda aside and rediscover his economic reformist credentials, or what was once the world's fastest growing large economy risks becoming one of its most troubled.
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