China’s ability to get things done has long caused many Indians to marvel. Whether the planners in Beijing are overseeing the biggest rural-urban migration in human history or building the world’s longest high-speed rail network faster than you can say “tickets please”, there is a sense of purpose to everything they do. India – democratic, federal, chaotic – has never been able to pull off anything like that speed of execution.

中国的实干能力长期以来令许多印度人惊叹。无论是引导人类史上最大规模的农村到城市人口迁移大潮，还是指挥建设世界上里程最长的高速铁路网络（那速度快得你都来不及说“请出示车票”），北京的政策规划者做的每一件事都显得目标明确。这样的执行效率是民主、联邦制、混乱的印度始终望尘莫及的。

For years, Indians have hoped that their virtues will win out in the end. Their country may plod, goes the narrative, but it plods in the right direction. China’s authoritarian system, which operates without the constraints of electors, independent courts or a free press, can dash off in any direction. It is capable of engineering 10 per cent growth year after year (though even that miracle has recently run out of road). Equally, it can produce the disaster of the cultural revolution and may yet conjure an economic catastrophe – say an explosion of the property sector or an implosion of shadow banking. China has only a gas pedal.

多年来，印度人一直希望能凭借自己的优点最终超过中国。有一种说法认为，印度或许走得不快，但走的方向是对的。没有选民、独立司法体系和自由媒体的约束，中国的威权体制无论朝着哪个方向都能飞速前进。中国能够让经济连续多年保持10%的增长率（不过这个奇迹近年也已无以为继）。同样，中国也能制造文化大革命那样的灾难，并且还可能再制造一场经济灾难，比如房地产泡沫破裂或影子银行体系坍塌。中国只有油门，没有刹车。

But what if Indians voted to become more like China? That is one plausible interpretation of the seemingly decisive swing in electoral support towards Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister and a prime ministerial candidate with Chinese characteristics. If nothing else, Mr Modi, whose leadership style brooks little opposition, has a reputation for getting things done. His supporters, including most of the country’s business leaders, who have flocked to Gujarat to pay homage, praise his decisiveness and hatred of red tape. In 2008 Ratan Tata, whose plan to build the Nano mini-car in West Bengal fell foul of local politics, came to him with a proposal to switch the factory to Gujarat.

但要是印度选民希望让印度变得更像中国一点怎么办？具有中国人作风特征的古吉拉特邦(Gujarat)首席部长、印度总理候选人纳伦德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)最近看上去明显赢得了多数选民的支持，一个合理的解释就是：印度人希望像中国那样。别的不说，领导风格说一不二的莫迪就以富有实干能力闻名。让支持者们称赞的是，莫迪做事果断，痛恨繁文缛节。印度大多数商界领袖也是他的拥趸，为表敬意，他们纷纷把业务迁至古吉拉特邦。2008年，拉丹•塔塔(Ratan Tata)在西孟加拉邦(West Bengal)建厂生产Nano小型汽车的计划因为与地方政界发生纠纷而泡汤了。塔塔于是找到莫迪，希望转到古吉拉特邦建厂。

Mr Modi nodded – and it was done. Modinomics is the triumph of implementation over prevarication.

莫迪点了头——这事儿就成了。执行力战胜了推诿，这就是“莫迪经济学”的真谛。

The parallels with a Chinese-style leadership should not be overdone. But there is at least one other way in which a Modi administration might resemble a Chinese-style approach. Like Deng Xiaoping, who departed from Communist ideology with his pragmatic entreaty to “let some people get rich first”, Mr Modi is more about making the economic pie bigger than slicing it up fairly.

我们不应过分夸大莫迪领导风格与中式领导风格的相似程度。不过，如果莫迪当选，他组建的政府至少还会在一个方面体现出中式领导风格。与抛开共产主义意识形态、提出“让一部分人先富起来”务实言论的邓小平一样，莫迪将更专注于将经济的蛋糕做大，而不是将蛋糕分得更公平。

Critics of Manmohan Singh’s Congress administration, which in its second five-year term has watched helplessly as the growth rate has slid below 5 per cent, say it has prioritised redistribution over expansion. Its profligacy on subsidies and social programmes, charge detractors, has obliged the central bank to tighten monetary policy, thereby choking growth.

在第二个五年任期期间，曼莫汉•辛格(Manmohan Singh)领导的国大党政府束手无策地看着经济增长率下滑至5%以下。批评者称，辛格政府重视再分配甚于经济扩张。他们指责说，本届政府推出了大量补贴和社会保障计划，迫使印度央行不得不收紧货币政策，结果阻碍了增长。

Sadly for Congress, its redistributive policies are seen to have failed even by those who are supposed to have benefited. A recent Pew Research Center survey, which polled almost 2,500 people across the country, found that rich and poor Indians, educated and non-educated, urban and rural, want a switch to Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party by a hefty majority. Fully seven in 10 are dissatisfied with the way things are going, and 63 per cent favour a BJP administration over a Congress one. No fewer than 78 per cent have a favourable view of Mr Modi, with just 16 per cent disapproving.

对国大党而言，可悲的是，即便在本应受益的群体看来，其再分配政策也是失败的。皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)最近对印度各地近2500名受访者的调查显示，无论贫穷还是富有，有没有受过教育，来自城市还是农村，大多数受访者都希望莫迪领导的印度教民族主义政党“印度人民党”(Bharatiya Janata)上台执政。10个人中有7个人对现状不满。对于印度人民党政府更好还是国大党政府更好这个问题，63%的受访者更青睐前者。不少于78%的受访者对莫迪有好感，只有16%的受访者不支持他。

What do people expect from him? Asked which party would do a better job helping the poor, 54 per cent had faith in the BJP, with only 21 per cent selecting Congress. That is surprising given that Congress has funded a food-guarantee programme covering almost two-thirds of the population and a rural employment guarantee scheme ensuring 100 days of subsidised work per household. Similarly, asked which party would be better at controlling price rises, another crucial concern for poor people, the tally was 55 per cent in favour of Mr Modi’s BJP against 17 per cent for Congress.

人们期望莫迪带来什么？当被问到哪个党会更好地帮助穷人，54%的受访者认为是印度人民党，只有21%的受访者选择国大党。鉴于国大党推出了覆盖近三分之二人口的食品保障计划、以及确保每个家庭有补贴的工作时间达到100天的农村就业保障计划，这个结果挺让人意外的。类似的，当被问到哪个党能更好地控制物价上涨——穷人关心的另一个关键问题——调查结果是55%选择印度人民党，17%选择国大党。

Since faster growth was unleashed with the reforms of 1991, which dismantled the red-tape restrictions of the licence Raj, hundreds of millions of Indians have done better. But hundreds of millions more have been left behind. The crucial point, though, says Jagdish Bhagwati, a prominent Indian economist at Columbia University, is that those 20 years have demonstrated poverty to be a “removable condition”. Indians have undergone what he calls a “revolution of perceived possibilities”.

1991年的改革废除了原本规定了许多条条框框的许可证制度，让印度经济实现了更快增长。如今，几亿印度人的生活变得更好了。但还有几亿印度人被落在后面。不过，哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)著名印度裔经济学家贾格迪什•巴格瓦蒂(Jagdish Bhagwati)指出，20年发展的关键作用在于，证明了贫困是“可以消除的”。他说，印度人经历了一场“观念革命”。

Increasingly, according to this theory, they may be attracted not to promises of Nehruvian-style equality but rather to the prospect of Deng-style growth. Part of Mr Modi’s attraction is that, by sheer force of will, he may be able to override some of the checks and balances of Indian democracy and introduce some of the clearheadness of growth-driven China. Under a Modi administration, the hope is, land will be cleared, permissions will be granted, and roads and other infrastructure will be built. In this cheerful scenario – far too optimistic, according to his many detractors – he will do for India in its entirety what he has been able to achieve for Gujarat.

按照这种理论，印度人可能会愈发向往邓小平式增长，而不是尼赫鲁式公平。莫迪的吸引力部分源于，凭借强大的意志力，他有可能凌驾于印度民主的某些制衡机制，让印度在某种程度上能像中国那样思路清晰地追求增长。他们希望，在莫迪政府领导下，土地会被清理出来，各种许可会被颁发下去，道路和其他基础设施会被建成。在这种乐观的情况下——在许多批评者看来太过乐观了——莫迪将在整个印度复制他在古吉拉特邦取得的成功。

Of course, India will never really be like China. Mr Modi is a fiery orator who can rouse a crowd – a quality that, at least since Mao Zedong, has hardly been required by unelected Chinese leaders. Nor can India, fractious and with significant power devolved to the states, ever emulate an authoritarian China in which power is concentrated in the centre. And even if, after the general election in May, Mr Modi is crowned prime minister and goes on to wield power more single-mindedly than his predecessors, there will always be one crucial difference with China. If Indians decide that they do not like him, they can always kick him out.

当然，印度永远都不会真的跟中国一样。莫迪是个富有激情的演讲者，善于煽动听众，而在中国，至少自毛泽东以来，领导人都不是民选产生的，演讲并非他们必需具备的一项技能。印度相当大一部分权力被下放至各邦，它也永远也不可能模仿威权体制的实行中央集权的中国。即便莫迪在5月大选中被选为总理，比他的前任们更加目标明确地动用他的权力，印度与中国之间的关键区别也将始终存在。如果印度民众发现自己不喜欢莫迪了，他们将始终有权让他下台。