We have entered the 13th consecutive quarter of economic slowdown in India. Gross Domestic Product, meaning the total value of services and goods produced in this country in the last 12 months, shrunk in 2020-2021 against 2019-2020. We made less than we did the previous year. To return to where we were in January 2020, it will take perhaps another year. Perhaps longer, we do not know.

印度经济已经连续第13个季度放缓。GDP指的是一国过去12个月生产的服务和商品的总价值，与2019-2020年相比，印度在2020-2021年出现了萎缩。也就是我们赚的比去年少。要想回到2020年1月的水平，可能还需要一年的时间。也许更久，我们不知道。

The problem did not begin with Covid; it existed much before that. Growth began declining from January 2018 and has declined sequentially, meaning every quarter since then. The government has tried to tweak some of the numbers, something that Americans refer to as “putting lipstick on a pig” but to no avail. It is sequential decline over three years. The India growth story is over and has been over for a few years now. You can make all the speeches you want but you cannot argue against 39 straight months of slowing.

这个问题并非始于新冠疫情，它在那之前就存在了。增长从2018年1月开始放缓，并连续放缓，也就是说从那以后每个季度都在放缓。印度政府曾试图调整一些数据——美国人称之为“给猪涂口红”（粉饰太平）——但毫无效果。增速已经连续三年放缓了。印度的增长故事已经结束，而且已经结束了好几年。我们可以随心所欲的做演讲，但我们无法反驳经济增速连续39个月放缓的事实。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Speaking loudly of competing with China and America but then falling behind even Bangladesh’s per capita GDP does not inspire confidence. The fact is that even without the lockdown we were in crisis, a word that is used loosely but can be said to be accurate here. The government has no idea why the economy began to stall from January 2018. There are theories from the outside, but they are not discussed or debated in government — who will tell the King that his rule is incompetent? Nobody, unless they want to lose their head (or at least their job) and so we continue to bumble on, along the same path that has brought us to this disaster.

我们大谈与中国和美国竞争，然后连人均GDP都落在了孟加拉国后面，这并不能激发信心。事实上，即使没有封锁，我们也处于危机中，人们轻率的使用“危机”这个词，但用在这里可以说很准确。经济从2018年1月开始停滞，政府不知道原因是什么。现在有些来自外部的理论，但政府中并没有将它们纳入讨论或辩论——谁会跟那个国王说他的统治很无能？没有人会说，除非他们想掉脑袋(或者至少会丢掉饭碗)，所以我们继续沿着把这条我们带进这场灾难的道路，跌跌撞撞地走下去。

The signs of our decay are all around us. Work that has left China because of Trump’s trade war and Covid has not come to India but to Vietnam and Bangladesh. Our neighbour has crept ahead of us in per capita GDP because its exports (powered by high-labour intensive garment manufacturing) are growing while ours have not grown since 2014. We have six years of zero growth in exports. It is also ahead because it has much higher participation of women in the labour force.

我们周围到处都是衰退的迹象。由于特朗普的贸易战和新冠肺炎而离开中国的就业岗位，并没有来到印度，而是去了越南和孟加拉国。我们的邻国已经在人均GDP上超过了我们，因为它的出口(由高劳动密集型服装制造业推动)在增长，而我们的出口自2014年以来就没有增长。我们的出口持续6年零增长。邻国领先的另一个原因是女性在劳动力中的参与率要比我们高得多。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


In India, the patriarchy is more concerned about who Indians marry rather than why they are not working. India is the most dangerous place for women in the world. According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women, we were at fourth place in 2011 and then fell to last place in 2018, where presumably we remain. The low participation of women in the workforce has many complex reasons, but the failure of the State and indeed the inability of this current government to stop the slide further, is also responsible.

在印度，父权制更关心印度女人嫁给谁，而不是她们为什么不工作。对女性来说，印度是世界上最危险的地方。根据汤森路透基金会发布的“世界上对女性最危险的国家”榜单，我们在2011年排名第四，然后在2018年跌至最后一名，现在应该还在这个位置上。女性劳动力的参与率低，有许多复杂的原因，但政府的失败以及本届政府无法阻止其进一步下滑也是原因之一。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


We have more of the same to look forward to in 2021. We will not see the economy pick up but we will see more bombast from the government about how well we are doing. The enormous hole in the economy that was created in the first quarter of last year (April-June) because of the lockdown will have been filled over the last few months. When results for the same quarter year on year appear sometime in the middle of 2021, Modi will exclaim that we are the world’s fastest growing economy and pretend that the 25% increase is not just the filing up of a hole he himself created but some miracle he has delivered to the Indian economy.

2021年我们还会看到更多类似的事情。我们不会看到经济复苏，但我们会看到政府对本国的表现夸夸其谈。去年第一季度(4月至6月)封锁给经济造成的巨大缺口，将在过去几个月被填补。当季度同比增长的结果在2021年年中的某个时候出现时，莫迪会大声说“我们是世界上增长最快的经济体”——他假装那25%的增长不仅弥补了他本人制造的窟窿，而且是他为印度经济创造的奇迹。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The Economist reported that Mukesh Ambani’s wealth rose 350% in 2020 and Gautam Adani’s rose over 700%, but we are at record unemployment, which is hovering around the 9% mark. And it is not higher still only because many crore Indians have removed themselves from the job market. Those who are not employed and not actively looking for work are not considered unemployed. The real figure could be approaching 15% and perhaps even higher than that.

《经济学人》报道称，2020年，穆凯什·安巴尼的财富增长了350%，高塔姆·阿达尼的财富增长了700%以上，但我们的失业率却创下了新纪录，徘徊在9%左右。而且，这并不是仅仅因为有几千万印度人离开了就业市场。那些没有工作或者没有积极寻找工作的人不会被视为失业者。实际失业率数字可能接近15%，甚至可能更高。

On every conceivable metric that you can think of, from bank credit growth, to automobile sale, the revelation is not only that there is no India growth story but there is a decline that has set us back years, perhaps a decade. And yet the triumphalism carries on. The BJP won almost half the seats of West Bengal in 2019 and one will be very surprised if they do not win the election there later this year. The amount of resource they have because of the electoral bonds and because of the broad support Modi receives from corporate India cannot be matched by any other party and cannot be matched by all other parties put together. Another state will fall to the BJP, and if it doesn’t this time then certainly it will the next.

从银行信贷增长到汽车销售，我们能想到的每一个指标都表明，印度不仅没有增长故事，而且出现了倒退数年、甚至10年的衰退。然而，人们继续抱着必胜的心态。2019年，印度人民党赢得了西孟加拉邦近一半的席位，如果他们没有赢得今年晚些时候的选举，我会非常惊讶。由于选举债券和莫迪从印度企业界获得的广泛支持，他们拥有的资源数量是任何其他政党都无法匹敌的，其他所有政党加起来也无法与之匹敌。又一个邦会落入人民党之手，而且如果这次没有，那么下次肯定会。

Elsewhere, society has been torn apart, most likely in a way that cannot ever be repaired. I am not saying this out of despair but one has to be realistic. This amount of poison being injected from the top cannot be detoxified without resistance and one sees no resistance to it.

在其他地方，我们的社会已经分崩离析，而且很可能以一种无法修复的方式。我这么说不是出于绝望，而是认为我们必须面对现实。如果没有抗性，印度无法解除顶层注入的这么多毒素，而我们对这种毒素没有任何抗性。

On every parameter, from economic decline to national security failure to unemployment to social tensions, India will continue in the path that it has chosen for itself since 2014. But at least Modi will continue to be popular, making his daily sermons about how much better things are under him and how bad it was in the past.

从经济衰退到国家安全失败，从失业到社会紧张，印度将在2014年以来为自己选择的那条道路上继续走下去。但至少莫迪还会继续受欢迎，每天都在布道，说他领导下的情况有多好，过去的情况有多糟糕。