In less than a year, what is perhaps the greatest democratic show on earth will take place. In May, 2014, or perhaps sooner, some 780 million Indian voters will go to the polls to decide if they're going to give a thumping endorsement to the Congress Party-led ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), to govern the country for a third term.
In its second term, the UPA has not had an easy ride. It's been beset by massive corruption scandals, seemingly one after another; mismanagement of the economy; and allegations of incompetence and malfeasance directed at some senior leaders in the party. The saving grace for Congress and its allies has been that the opposition BJP, a party with ties to Hindu nationalist groups that governed India until 2004, has been in disarray for some time and hasn't really proved to be a credible alternative.
India had been one of the few countries to escape the financial crisis largely unscathed. But recently, it has seen growth fall from an average of 8 per cent annually between 2003 and 2008 to a less impressive 5 per cent this year, the lowest it's been in a decade. Industrial output slowed to 1 per cent in 2012-13, representing a 20-year low, accompanied by persistently high inflation, slumping exports, low investor confidence and an enormously high fiscal deficit brought about by the government's obsession with spending on big-ticket entitlement and welfare programs.
To make matters worse, in recent days, the markets have been spooked by a rupee that continues to plummet.
Much-needed policy reforms in areas such as tax and labour laws, had they been implemented, would have made a difference to this depressing picture, but the reform agenda has basically stalled. Even the much vaunted opening up of the economy to foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail has failed to entice overseas investors.
Last month saw the release of a report from the UPA to the nation outlining the coalition's self-proclaimed achievements during its tenure – an attempt to give the group a much-needed boost and burnish its image. Widely called a "report card" in the Indian media, it was anything but an honest assessment and evaluation of where things stand – and instead was an exercise in self-praise.
While some portion of the recent slowdown could be attributed to poor global economic conditions, it's simply not credible for the government or anyone else to assert that the Indian economy's poor performance is all down to bad luck. A drop in the growth rate from nearly double digits to 5 per cent represents nothing less than a catastrophe in a still-poor emerging economy which, according to economists, shouldn't be growing much below 7 or 8 per cent if it were well-managed.
It's as if the UPA took a wrecking ball to the edifice of Indian economic growth and left it in ruins.
Consequently, it's no surprise that public perception of the government, at least in India's urban centers and among the country's growing and newly assertive middle class, has taken a beating. If recent opinion polls are to be believed, people, at least in urban India, seem to be ready for a change.
That change is unlikely to be Rahul Gandhi, great-grandson of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, son of the current Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi, and recently appointed vice-president of the party. Mr. Gandhi is largely untested as a politician, and his main claim to fame so far has been that he's the current generation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has ruled India for most of the 65 years since independence.
Mr. Gandhi, 42, in theory could be the youthful face of a resurgent and renewed Congress party. But he's proved to be unwilling to assume the mantle and seems a reluctant politician. He's media shy, rarely gives interviews and is conspicuously absent from social media, which has become a principal forum for the urban middle classes to talk about politics and other things that animate them.
What is more, Mr. Gandhi's recent speeches have just rehashed Congress's old mantras about redistribution and social welfare, giving no indication of how these leaky and corrupt programs can be made more efficient and really help the people who, in theory, they're targeted at. Nor has he suggested how the UPA, if it wins a hat trick next year, will root out the corruption and rot that has set in during the last nine years of its rule.
A far more compelling icon for many in India's burgeoning urban middle classes is someone who's life story is entirely different from Mr. Gandhi's. Narendra Modi, 62, is chief minister of the fast growing and well-managed western state of Gujarat and is widely seen as Mr. Gandhi's chief opponent as leader of the BJP coalition. Can Mr. Modi offer the change that Mr. Gandhi is unlikely to deliver – and could he be the nation's prime minister?
Rupa Subramanya is based in Mumbai and co-author of Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India. Follow her on Twitter @rupasubramanya