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沙发
发表于 2011-6-19 14:48
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搜了下,原来版上已经发过了。再转篇纪思道最近的文章。
http://dongxi.net/b06Xr
【纽约时报】印度比中国强在哪?
www.nytimes.com
译者: Kevin·Ren 2011年05月30日 01:24 原作者: 纪思道(NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF)
经济正蓬勃发展的印度拥有许多中国所不能比拟的优势。中国人要当心了! 小心印度抢了你的午餐。
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本文被转载引用(0) 频道: 世界 类别: 文章 标签: 纽约时报,印度,中国,媒体,民间组织
所属专栏: 纽约观点
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印度加尔各答
我第一次访问加尔各答是在1982年,当时我还是一位带着背包四处旅行的法律学生。我住在豪拉贫民窟的一个招待所里,遗憾的是,我的相机只能捕捉影像,无法记录那股同样令人难忘的恶臭。
在随后25年的多次访问中,我发现加尔各答和印度许多地区似乎没有什么改变。中国——有人看玩笑地说,这个国家的国鸟是起重机——每一两年就会发生巨大的变化,而加尔各答总保持着一副破旧的模样,在散发着丑闻的运河边,经常可以看到拉着人力车的赤足男子。
这就是印度一直以来让那些民主信奉者感到尴尬(尤其是跟中国相比之下)的原因。就消除贫困而言,中国共产党要比民选的印度政府做得好得多。虽然印度容忍异见人士,但它也容忍效率低下、疾病和文盲。
但今年对印度和中国进行了几次访问之后,我觉得上述情状或许正在变化。尽管全球经济放缓,但印度经济正以年均愈8%的速度疾步而行。没错,印度经济如今“虎虎生威”。
这些年来,印度南部城市班加罗尔四周的技术区一直在蓬勃发展,但现在不一样的地方在于,这种增长正在印度全国范围内蔓延,甚至加尔各答也发生了惊人的变化,涌现出了许多高楼大厦、配备空调的购物中心,开办了许多新的基建工程和企业。
在本月的选举中,长期执掌西孟加拉邦的共产党政府遭到罢黜,刚刚当选的首席部长是一位充满活力的女性马吗塔·巴纳吉(Mamata Banerjee)。最近这次选举中涌现出了许多富有魅力的女性政治家,这似乎已成为一大趋势——如今,三分之一印度人所在的邦由女性执政。
北部的比哈尔邦曾经是一个更令人尴尬的地方。多年来,歹徒一直在政府中发挥着重要作用,那里的一切都运转不灵。我曾经参观过比哈尔州的一个诊所,诊所员工直接把药品倾倒在地上的一个坑里,这样就不必为分发这些药物劳神了。在参观比哈尔邦一所学校期间,我连个老师人影都没见到。在农村地区,歹徒随意强奸妇女,抢夺财物,为所欲为。商家逃之夭夭,绑架蔚然成风,比哈尔州似乎已无药可救。
然而,自一位名叫尼蒂什·库马尔(Nitish Kumar)的改革家于2005年当选首席部长以来,比哈尔突然产生了许多奇妙的变化。尽管依然存在许多效率低下的现象,但犯罪率却得到了有效遏制,贪腐行为亦大大减少,地方经济正在以两位数的速度蓬勃发展。如果比哈尔邦都能够华丽转身,印度任何一个地区都可以。
瞧,印度依然远远落后于中国,面临着巴基斯坦极端主义带来的风险,其经济体制亟需进一步改革,印度人也太容易接纳无效率乃宇宙的自然法则这一观点。印度的教育和医疗体系(特别是农村地区)依然令人不齿——孟加拉国在这方面就做得好得多,尽管该国比印度更穷。但印度的空气中弥漫着变革的味道。婴儿死亡率正在下降,选民们正在推动政府改善治理,我认为在未来几十年的经济竞争中,与中国相比,印度具备三大优势。
首先,印度独立的新闻媒体和基层民间组织(这些都是中国罕有的事物)正在演变为消解腐败行为和低效现象的监督机构。我有一种预感:印度的盗贼统治(kleptocracy)已触及顶峰,正在减弱,而中国的这种现象则持续恶化。我曾经在文章中无情地抨击过印度贩卖人口和压迫妇女的劣行,但另一个事实是,民间社会正在设法解决这些问题。
其二,中国经济或许会因人口老化而减速,而更为年轻的印度人口将在未来数十年中产生巨大的“人口红利”(印度人口过多依然是个问题,但印度妇女现在平均拥有2.6个孩子,而且这一数字还在下降)。与之相似,中国已经收获了因妇女自主权增加所产生的经济优势,而占人口一半份额的印度妇女才刚刚开始步入正式的劳动大军之列。
第三,除了古吉拉特邦于2002年爆发的反穆斯林屠杀以外,印度在管理宗教和种族冲突方面做得非常好。锡克族在旁遮普邦的挑战已经逐渐消退。穆斯林已经出任过三次总统,他们在商界和电影业中也占据着突出的位置;或许正因为此,作为世界第三大穆斯林人口大国(仅次于印尼和巴基斯坦)的印度并没有出现圣战分子。尽管印度在克什米尔有时显露出野蛮行为,但民间社会的监督力量正敦促政府作出改进。相比之下,中国藏族和维吾尔族地区的紧张局势正进一步恶化。
中国领导人的执政能力,是印度的民主派人士所不能比拟的。但这些天在印度的游览,的确是一次令人兴奋的体验。我的预感是,世界最大的民主国家正日益成为一个让人引以为傲,而不是惹人尴尬的源泉。
Slums Into Malls
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
KOLKATA, India
I first visited Kolkata, better known as Calcutta, in 1982 as a backpacking law student. I stayed at a hostel in the Howrah slums and regretted that my camera could record only images, not the equally memorable stench.
In my visits over the next 25 years, Kolkata — and much of India — seemed little changed. China, where the national bird was jokingly said to be the crane, would be transformed every year or two, while Kolkata was always the same: a decrepit city where barefoot men pulled rickshaws beside fetid canals.
That’s why India has been a bit of an embarrassment for those of us who believe in democracy, especially when compared with China. The Communist Party in China did a much better job fighting poverty than democratically elected Indian governments. India tolerated dissent, but it also tolerated inefficiency, disease and illiteracy.
But after my trips to India and China this year, I think all that may be changing. Despite the global economic slowdown, India’s economy is now hurtling along at more than 8 percent per year. Yep, India is now a “tiger economy.”
The technology zones around Bangalore in southern India have been booming for years, but what is changing is that the rise is gaining traction across the country — even here in Kolkata. It’s stunning to see the new high-rise towers in Kolkata, new air-conditioned shopping malls, new infrastructure projects, new businesses.
In elections this month, the longtime Communist Party government here in the state of West Bengal was ousted, and the new chief minister is a woman and a dynamo, Mamata Banerjee. After the latest elections, she’s part of a broader trend of charismatic female politicians: one-third of India’s people are now ruled by chief ministers who are women.
The northern state of Bihar used to be even more of an embarrassment. For many years, gangsters played a major role in government there, and nothing worked. I once visited a health clinic in Bihar where employees dumped medicines in a pit in the ground, so they wouldn’t have to dispense them. I visited a school in Bihar where teachers never bothered to show up. I visited villages where gangsters raped, robbed and ruled at their pleasure. Businesses fled, kidnapping became rampant, and Bihar seemed hopeless.
Yet Bihar has, wondrously, turned around since 2005, when a reformer named Nitish Kumar took over as chief minister. There are still enormous inefficiencies, but crime has been suppressed, corruption has diminished, and the local economy is booming at double-digit rates. And if Bihar can turn around, any Indian region can.
Look, India still lags far behind China, it faces risks of Pakistani extremism, it needs further economic reforms, and it too readily accepts inefficiency as the natural order of the universe. India’s education and health system is a disgrace, especially in rural areas; Bangladesh does a much better job, despite being poorer. But change is in the air in India. Infant mortality is dropping, voters are pushing for better governance, and I think India has three advantages over China in their economic rivalry in the coming decades.
First, India’s independent news media and grass-roots civic organizations — sectors that barely exist in China — are becoming watchdogs against corruption and inefficiency. My hunch is that kleptocracy reached its apogee and is now waning in India, while in China it continues to get worse. I’ve written scathingly about India’s human trafficking and oppression of women, but it’s also true that civil society is addressing these issues.
Second, China’s economy may be slowed by the aging of its population, while India’s younger population will lead to a “demographic dividend” in coming decades. (Indian overpopulation is still a problem, but the average woman now has 2.6 children, and the figure is dropping.) Likewise, China already reaped the economic advantages of empowering its women, while India is just beginning to usher the female half of its population into the formal labor force.
Third, India has managed religious and ethnic tensions pretty well, aside from the disgraceful anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat in 2002. The Sikh challenge in the Punjab has dissipated. Muslims have been president of India three times, and are prominent in business and the movie industry; perhaps as a result, India has the world’s third-largest Muslim population (after Indonesia and Pakistan) but few jihadis. And while India has sometimes behaved brutally in Kashmir, civil society watchdogs are pressing for better behavior there. In China, by contrast, tensions with ethnic Tibetans and Uighurs are worsening.
China’s autocrats are extraordinarily competent, in a way that India’s democrats are not. But traveling in India these days is a heartening experience: my hunch is that the world’s largest democracy increasingly will be a source not of embarrassment but of pride. |
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