輪到印度龜了嗎 The Turn of the Tortoise by TN Ninan

At the start of 2016, the numbers suggest it really is the turn of the Indian tortoise to race ahead. With annual gross domestic product growth of 7.4 per cent in the third quarter, India is expanding faster than China or any large economy and is sparkling when compared with recession-hit emerging markets such as Brazil.

2016年初，數據表明這次真的輪到“印度龜”跑在最前面了。印度去年第三季度國內生產總值(GDP)同比增長7.4%，超過了中國或其他任何大型經濟體的增速，和巴西等陷入衰退的新興市場國家相比更是熠熠生輝。

TN Ninan is, however, more of a stolid realist than a nationalistic cheerleader for India or for Narendra Modi, its prime minister.

然而，比起爲印度或者印度總理納倫德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)搖旗吶喊的民族主義者，T•N•尼南(TN Ninan)更多是一個冷靜的現實主義者。

Ninan, chairman and former editor of the Business Standard newspaper, implies in this survey of India’s economy since the 1991 reforms that its moment of glory comes almost by default. While others have fallen by the wayside, India plods and stumbles onwards, propelled by the sheer size of a domestic market of 1.3bn people and the need to catch up with nimbler rivals. “India is the world’s last great business frontier,” he writes.

作爲印度《商業標準報》(Business Standard)的董事長和前主編，尼南在這項對印度1991年改革後的經濟情況的調查中暗示，印度的榮耀時刻幾乎是在對手缺席的情況下到來的。在其他國家失敗的時候，印度憑藉13億人口的龐大國內市場，在追趕更靈活的對手的需求推動下，跌跌撞撞地艱難前行。“印度是世界上最後一塊大的商業待開發地，”他寫道。

India, as Ninan says, is compared unfavourably with China and other Asian successes to the east rather than with struggling African economies to the west. And India is a nuclear power that has sent a satellite to Mars. But, yes, India’s transport infrastructure is bad; governments have crippled industry over the years with laughably counterproductive policies (including penalising large companies and so ensuring that China took charge of every internationally traded sector from garments to white goods); basic state education and healthcare are shockingly poor; and corrupt politicians and obstructive bureaucrats are many and powerful.

就如尼南所說，與東邊的中國和其他取得成功的亞洲國家相比，印度顯得遜色，但是和其西邊苦苦掙扎的非洲經濟體相比，印度還是比下有餘的。印度是一個核國家，還將衛星送上了火星。然而，是的，印度的交通基礎設施很糟糕；多年來印度政府可笑的政策（包括處罰大型企業，從而確保中國掌控了從製衣到白色家電的每一個國際貿易行業）適得其反，嚴重損害了工業；基本國家教育和醫療貧乏得令人震驚；腐敗的政客和妨礙發展的官僚爲數衆多，手握大權。

“Put it all together, and the system is manifestly dysfunctional,” says Ninan, noting that in 2014 India’s average per capita income was lower than those of Laos, Zambia and Sudan.

“把這些結合在一起看，印度的整個系統就顯得明顯功能失調了，”尼南說，指出印度2014年的人均收入還不及老撾、贊比亞和蘇丹。

The two big Indian failures he identifies are in government (which can be fixed, albeit with difficulty) and in manufacturing (which can also be fixed, but not in a way that will recreate the mass employment of industrial revolutions before the robotic age).

他界定了印度的兩大失敗，分別是政府（儘管存在困難，但這個問題可以修正）和製造業（這個問題也可以修正，但即使修正也無法在機器人時代之前重新創造工業革命那樣的大規模就業）。

Successive Indian governments are blamed, among other things, for focusing on tertiary rather than basic education, for creating an unwieldy welfare state (among the handouts in Tamil Nadu are rice, food mixers, goats, laptops, free electricity for weavers and cash and gold for those getting married), and for slow justice and bad labour laws.

歷屆印度政府應該爲許多事而受到指責，尤其是：專注於高等教育而非基礎教育；打造了一個運轉不靈的福利國家（政府在泰米爾納德邦(Tamil Nadu)發放的救濟品包括大米、食品攪拌機、山羊、筆記本電腦、爲織工提供的免費電力、爲將要結婚的人提供的現金和黃金）；司法程序緩慢，勞動法糟糕。

Officially there are 30m Indians in formal employment, just 6 per cent of the total workforce, and most of them are state employees — although the statistics are contradicted by other data. India is indeed what Harvard professor Lant Pritchett called a “flailing state”, with officials unable to implement even the sensible policies handed down from the top.

根據官方數據，有3000萬印度人受到正式僱傭，僅佔總勞動人口的6%，其中大多數是國家僱員——儘管這些統計和其他數據相矛盾。哈佛大學(Harvard University)教授蘭特•普里切特(Lant Pritchett)將印度稱爲一個“頭腦指揮不了四肢的國家”是恰如其分的，哪怕上層下達的政策是明智的，印度官員也無法執行。

In manufacturing, Mr Modi has launched a “Make in India” programme to attract investment and integrate the country’s factories into global supply chains dominated by east Asia. In theory, wages are attractively low for investors, but Mr Modi is faced with an awful legacy.

在製造業，莫迪啓動了“印度製造”計劃以吸引投資，以及讓本國工廠融入由東亞主導的全球供應鏈。理論上，對投資者而言印度的低薪資水平很有吸引力，但莫迪面臨着可怕的歷史遺留問題。

India finally freed product markets in the 1990s from the Kafkaesque rules that had governed them, but has proved unable to liberalise the key factors of production — labour and land.

上世紀90年代，印度最終將產品市場從之前統治它的卡夫卡式規則中解放出來，但事實證明印度無法解放關鍵的生產因素——勞動者和土地。

“Indeed,” writes Ninan, “most producers looking for alternatives to China are not looking at India. Its rigid labour laws remain a handicap, its workers are not always as productive, the infrastructure is deficient, and dealing with the authorities is a nightmare. Almost all countries in east Asia offer easier working environments.” Ouch.

“的確，”尼南寫道，“大多數尋求中國的替代品的生產商並沒有把眼光投向印度。印度僵硬的勞動法始終是個障礙，印度的勞動者也並非總是具有同等的生產率，基礎設施不足，和印度當局打交道更是噩夢。幾乎所有東亞國家都能提供更便利的工作環境。”真糟糕。

Ninan lays out three “mega trends” that will shape India’s future: a surge in the size of the middle class; the continued but unwilling retreat of the state from the economy (43 per cent of schoolchildren go to private schools); and a shift in political power from New Delhi to state capitals.

尼南列舉了將塑造印度未來的三個“大趨勢”：中產階層數量激增；國家從經濟中不情願但持續地撤退（43%的學齡兒童現在到私立學校就學）；政治權力從新德里向邦首府轉移。

He laments the lack of any constituency among politicians for free markets or radical reform. The best he can say — echoing Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech at independence in 1947 — is that life for Indians will improve at an acceptable speed “not wholly, but very substantially”. For the time being, the Indian tortoise is moving faster up the track than its rivals. But it is a long way from the finish line, and it is still a tortoise.

尼南對政治人士中缺乏支持自由市場或者激進改革的人感到失望。他能夠說出的最好評價呼應了賈瓦哈拉爾•尼赫魯(Jawaharlal Nehru)在1947年發表的獨立演講——印度人的生活將以可接受的速度“不完全、但實實在在地”改善。目前，印度龜在跑道上比對手移動得更快。但現在離終點線還很遠，而印度仍只是一隻烏龜。