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Finance & economics
財經版塊
Obituary
訃告
India's great reformer
印度的偉大改革者
Manmohan Singh died on December 26th. He fought for economic freedom.
曼莫漢·辛格于2024年12月26日去世，曾為經濟自由而斗爭。（注：錄音將26th誤讀為16th。）
It is fitting that Manmohan Singh, who unshackled Indian trade as the country’s finance minister, was the son of an importer.
曼莫漢·辛格在擔任印度財政部長期間解放了印度貿易，這很符合他作為進口商人的兒子的身份。
His father’s firm in Peshawar procured dry fruit and spices from Afghanistan.
他父親在白沙瓦有一家公司，業務是從阿富汗采購干果和香料。
As a boy, Mr Singh would fill his pockets with raisins that classmates tried to steal.
小時候，辛格的口袋里裝滿了葡萄干，同學們總是想把葡萄干偷走。
From an early age, he appreciated the fruits of international commerce.
他很早就品嘗到了國際貿易的果實。
Clever and studious, Mr Singh probably did well in the school-leaving exams he took in 1947.
辛格聰明好學，在1947年的畢業考試中可能成績優異。（注：1947年，英國通過“蒙巴頓方案”，將印度分為印度和巴基斯坦兩個自治領。同年8月15日，印度獨立。）
But he would never find out.
但他永遠不會知道考試成績。
In breaking free from colonial rule, India was also breaking violently in two.
在擺脫殖民統治的過程中，印度也在暴力中分裂成兩部分。
Peshawar would become part of Pakistan.
白沙瓦變成了巴基斯坦的一部分。
To take his exams, Mr Singh had to cross a city scattered with corpses.
為了參加考試，辛格不得不穿過一座尸橫遍野的城市。
Amid the chaos, the results were never announced.
當時局勢混亂，考試結果從未被宣布。
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，他身無分文，但心懷抱負，這個新誕生的印度共和國也是一樣。
India’s investment needs were vast.
印度的投資需求是巨大的。
Industrial equipment and other capital goods would have to be bought overseas, leaving little hard currency for anything else.
必須從海外購買工業設備和其他資本貨物，幾乎不剩多少硬通貨能用來購買其他東西。
State planners policed imports and protected homegrown alternatives.
國家規劃者監管進口，并保護本土替代品。
Lacking textbooks, Mr Singh travelled alone to Delhi in 1948 to retake his exams.
由于缺少課本，辛格在1948年獨自前往德里，重新參加考試。
Decades later he described this period to his daughter, Daman.
幾十年后，他向女兒達曼描述了這段時期。
There was much he could not remember and plenty he might have liked to forget.
有很多事情他已經想不起來了，也有很多事情他可能想要忘記。
But he recalled with precision his exam result: 694 out of 850.
但他精確地回憶起自己的考試成績：滿分850分，他得了694分。
Even better results would follow at Punjab University and then Cambridge and Oxford.
后來他在印度旁遮普大學，繼而在劍橋大學和牛津大學又取得了更好的成績。
Amid his success, he was quietly confident and confidently quiet.
辛格先生成就斐然，但他自信而不張揚，沉靜而不怯弱。
One don remembers his “excessive diffidence”.
一位大學教師記得，他“過于謙遜靦腆”。
In a letter, Mr Singh moaned that he had spent several pounds on crockery.
在一封信中，辛格先生抱怨說，他花了好幾英鎊買陶器。
That he occasionally had to entertain half-a-dozen people was worth writing home about.
他偶爾不得不招待六個人，這是在家書中值得寫一筆的特殊事件。
Aloofness would normally have barred him from becoming a politician, let alone prime minister.
這種疏離的性格通常會使他無法成為一名政治家，更不用說成為總理。
Yet his modesty was in fact a prerequisite.
但他的謙遜實際上是成為總理的一個前提條件。
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.
一個自信專斷的人永遠不會被索尼婭·甘地接受，她是國大黨的外籍領袖，在2004年選舉中，國大黨出人意料地獲勝，她希望在不擔任公職的情況下掌握權力。（注：索尼婭·甘地在勝選后放棄成為總理，指名讓辛格擔任。）
Besides, in his writing and decisions, this supposedly diffident man could be trenchant.
此外從辛格的著作和決策中可看出，這個被認為是謙遜靦腆的人也可以很尖銳犀利。
Mr Singh’s research took on the “export fatalism” that cursed India’s economic strategy.
辛格先生的研究針對的是困擾印度經濟戰略的“出口宿命論”。
Previous scholars had argued there was little room for growth in India’s principal exports, such as jute and tea.
以前的學者認為，印度的主要出口商品（如黃麻和茶葉）增長空間很小。
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.
根據這種觀點，（出口帶來的）硬通貨仍將很少，這反過來又證明了應該將投資引向替代外國商品的產業，而不是服務于外國市場的產業。
