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Finance & economics
财经版块
Obituary
讣告
India's great reformer
印度的伟大改革者
Manmohan Singh died on December 26th. He fought for economic freedom.
曼莫汉·辛格于2024年12月26日去世，曾为经济自由而斗争。（注：录音将26th误读为16th。）
It is fitting that Manmohan Singh, who unshackled Indian trade as the country’s finance minister, was the son of an importer.
曼莫汉·辛格在担任印度财政部长期间解放了印度贸易，这很符合他作为进口商人的儿子的身份。
His father’s firm in Peshawar procured dry fruit and spices from Afghanistan.
他父亲在白沙瓦有一家公司，业务是从阿富汗采购干果和香料。
As a boy, Mr Singh would fill his pockets with raisins that classmates tried to steal.
小时候，辛格的口袋里装满了葡萄干，同学们总是想把葡萄干偷走。
From an early age, he appreciated the fruits of international commerce.
他很早就品尝到了国际贸易的果实。
Clever and studious, Mr Singh probably did well in the school-leaving exams he took in 1947.
辛格聪明好学，在1947年的毕业考试中可能成绩优异。（注：1947年，英国通过“蒙巴顿方案”，将印度分为印度和巴基斯坦两个自治领。同年8月15日，印度独立。）
But he would never find out.
但他永远不会知道考试成绩。
In breaking free from colonial rule, India was also breaking violently in two.
在摆脱殖民统治的过程中，印度也在暴力中分裂成两部分。
Peshawar would become part of Pakistan.
白沙瓦变成了巴基斯坦的一部分。
To take his exams, Mr Singh had to cross a city scattered with corpses.
为了参加考试，辛格不得不穿过一座尸横遍野的城市。
Amid the chaos, the results were never announced.
当时局势混乱，考试结果从未被宣布。
He fled with his family to northern India, where he had little money but lots of aspirations, much like the new republic itself.
辛格和家人逃到了印度北部，他身无分文，但心怀抱负，这个新诞生的印度共和国也是一样。
India’s investment needs were vast.
印度的投资需求是巨大的。
Industrial equipment and other capital goods would have to be bought overseas, leaving little hard currency for anything else.
必须从海外购买工业设备和其他资本货物，几乎不剩多少硬通货能用来购买其他东西。
State planners policed imports and protected homegrown alternatives.
国家规划者监管进口，并保护本土替代品。
Lacking textbooks, Mr Singh travelled alone to Delhi in 1948 to retake his exams.
由于缺少课本，辛格在1948年独自前往德里，重新参加考试。
Decades later he described this period to his daughter, Daman.
几十年后，他向女儿达曼描述了这段时期。
There was much he could not remember and plenty he might have liked to forget.
有很多事情他已经想不起来了，也有很多事情他可能想要忘记。
But he recalled with precision his exam result: 694 out of 850.
但他精确地回忆起自己的考试成绩：满分850分，他得了694分。
Even better results would follow at Punjab University and then Cambridge and Oxford.
后来他在印度旁遮普大学，继而在剑桥大学和牛津大学又取得了更好的成绩。
Amid his success, he was quietly confident and confidently quiet.
辛格先生成就斐然，但他自信而不张扬，沉静而不怯弱。
One don remembers his “excessive diffidence”.
一位大学教师记得，他“过于谦逊腼腆”。
In a letter, Mr Singh moaned that he had spent several pounds on crockery.
在一封信中，辛格先生抱怨说，他花了好几英镑买陶器。
That he occasionally had to entertain half-a-dozen people was worth writing home about.
他偶尔不得不招待六个人，这是在家书中值得写一笔的特殊事件。
Aloofness would normally have barred him from becoming a politician, let alone prime minister.
这种疏离的性格通常会使他无法成为一名政治家，更不用说成为总理。
Yet his modesty was in fact a prerequisite.
但他的谦逊实际上是成为总理的一个前提条件。
A self-assertive man would never have been acceptable to Sonia Gandhi, the foreign-born leader of the Congress party, who wanted to hold power without holding office after her party’s surprise success in the 2004 elections.
一个自信专断的人永远不会被索尼娅·甘地接受，她是国大党的外籍领袖，在2004年选举中，国大党出人意料地获胜，她希望在不担任公职的情况下掌握权力。（注：索尼娅·甘地在胜选后放弃成为总理，指名让辛格担任。）
Besides, in his writing and decisions, this supposedly diffident man could be trenchant.
此外从辛格的著作和决策中可看出，这个被认为是谦逊腼腆的人也可以很尖锐犀利。
Mr Singh’s research took on the “export fatalism” that cursed India’s economic strategy.
辛格先生的研究针对的是困扰印度经济战略的“出口宿命论”。
Previous scholars had argued there was little room for growth in India’s principal exports, such as jute and tea.
以前的学者认为，印度的主要出口商品（如黄麻和茶叶）增长空间很小。
Hard currency would stay scarce, according to this view, which in turn justified steering investment towards industries that replaced foreign goods, rather than those that served foreign markets.
根据这种观点，（出口带来的）硬通货仍将很少，这反过来又证明了应该将投资引向替代外国商品的产业，而不是服务于外国市场的产业。
