为什么印度人不会因为废钞令失败感到愤怒？ [英国媒体]

Why aren't Indians angrier over note banfailure?

为什么印度人不会因为废钞令失败感到愤怒？

Justin RowlattSouthAsia correspondent 

贾斯汀·洛拉特，南亚通讯员



At one point it seemed the entire 1.2billion population of the world's seventh biggest economy had joined a giantbank queue

有一刻，似乎这个世界第七大经济体的全部12亿人民都加入了一场银行大地震

You might imagine that people here in Indiawould be angry at the news that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's audaciousattempt to crack down on the scourge of "black money" had failed.

你可能会以为印度人民会因为纳兰德拉·莫迪总理为打击“黑钱”而贸然下达的废钞令惨遭失败而感到愤怒。

The surprise cancellation of 86% of thecountry's currency caused huge disruption.

印度政府出乎意料地取消了全国86%的钞票引发了巨大的混乱。

At one point it seemed the entire 1.2billion population of the world's seventh biggest economy had joined a giantbank queue.

有一刻，似乎这个世界第七大经济体的全部12亿人民都加入了一场银行大地震。

But this was much more than an issue ofinconvenience, everyone was affected.

但这可不仅仅是造成一些不便的问题，所有人都受到了影响。

Remember, virtually all transactions inIndia are conducted in cash.

请记住，在印度几乎所有的交易都是用现金支付的。

Businesses stalled, lives were disrupted.Lots of people barely had the money to buy food.

业务停滞，生活混乱。许多人几乎没钱去买食物。

"We never expected that we would bereduced to becoming destitute in this manner," one of the hundreds ofthousands migrant workers who lost their jobs told the BBC in the days afterthe policy was announced.

“我们从没想到我们会因为这个法令而变得贫困不堪，”废钞令发布后，数十万失业外劳中的一员这样告诉BBC。

"We never expected our children to gohungry."

“我们从没想到过我们的孩子会挨饿。”



After 500 and 1,000 rupee notes werescrapped, Indian residents had to adjust to life, starting with waiting inqueues for hours to deposit their cash

在500和1000卢比面额的钞票被废除后，印度的居民被迫面对现实，排上几个小时的队来储存他们的现金

The cash crisis touched every aspect oflife.

钞票危机触及生活中的方方面面。

"It's my daughter's wedding tomorrowand I need money to pay for everything. I have nothing at the moment,"worried an anxious father in the eastern state of Bihar.

“明天就是我女儿的婚礼，每件事都在等着花钱。可是我现在身无分文，”在比哈尔邦，一名紧张的父亲正在发愁。

"They told us to deposit our old moneyso I have given the bank everything I had, now they are not giving me anythingback."

“他们告诉我们把旧钱存到银行里，所以我不得不把家里所有的钱都拿去存上了，现在他们啥也没给我。”

With tens of millions of people sufferingdistressing consequences you'd have thought there would be some blowback forthe government now that we know almost all the cash was returned.

几千万人都因废钞令遭受痛苦，那么你会想，现在我们已经知道几乎所有的“废钞”都回流到银行了，是不是会有一些针对政府的反弹发生呢？

So why hasn't the country risen up in fury?

那么这个国家为什么不暴动呢？

One reason is that lots of people find allthe big numbers and complex details difficult and - frankly - dull.

一个原因是许多人都觉得这些大数字和复杂的细节太深奥了，而且——坦白地说——枯燥。

You only need to look at the hundreds ofnews websites in India to see that. The story barely makes the list of topstories on the sites of the leading TV stations or even the country's biggestnewspaper.

你只要看看印度的几百个新闻网站就知道了。这个消息几乎不会成为各主要电视媒体网站头条新闻，即使在这个国家最大的新闻网站上也不是头条。

Another explanation is the success Mr Modihas had in spinning his note ban as a bold attempt to strike a blow to the richand powerful on behalf of the poor.

另一个解释是莫迪先生拥有非凡的歪曲能力，成功地把他的废钞令说成是站在穷人立场上对富人和大官僚的沉重打击。

"Those who have indulged in corruptionby cheating the poor, cannot have a good night's sleep," he thundered fromthe ramparts of the Red Fort two weeks ago on the anniversary of India'sindependence.

“那些欺骗穷人的腐败分子晚上要睡不着觉了，”在印度独立日庆典的前两周，他的声音从红堡的围墙后传来，如雷贯耳。



The decision was taken to crack down oncorruption and illegal cash holdings known as "black money"

这项决定是为了打击贪腐和非法资产，也就是“黑钱”

Thanks to demonetisation, he continued,"no one is allowed to cheat in the country any more, everyone is answerable."

感谢废钞令，他说，“决不再允许任何人欺骗国家，每个人都要负起责任。”

The figures from the Reserve Bank of Indiamay suggest the policy did not achieve that but, in a country riven withinequality, Mr Modi's message hit home hard.

来自印度央行的数据显示废钞令并没起到预想中的效果，但是，在这个充满不平等的国家里，莫迪先生发出的信息直击要害。

In part that is also because the governmentchanged the emphasis of the policy as soon as it became clear that it wasn'tworking out quite as planned.

一部分原因是，当发现废钞令并未按照设想发挥作用时，政府马上改变了说辞。

First off, demonetisation was all abouttackling so-called "black money"

首先，废钞令全部目的就是打击所谓的“黑钱”。

"There comes a time in the history ofa country's development when a need is felt for a strong and decisivestep," is what Mr Modi said when he launched the policy on the 8 Novemberlast year.

“在这个国家发展的历史中，有时我们感觉需要迈出强有力而且决定性的一步，而这一时刻已经来临，”这是莫迪先生在去年11月8日颁发废钞令时的讲话。

"For years, this country has felt thatcorruption, black money and terrorism are festering sores, holding us back inthe in the race towards development."

“多少年来，这个国家都能感受到贪腐、黑钱和恐怖主义带来的痛苦，它使得我们在奔向发达的竞赛中被拖了后腿。”

But within a few weeks of that announcementit was already clear that far more money was coming back than the governmenthad expected.

但在宣言发表仅仅几周后，政府发现回流到银行的钱比它之前预计的要多得多。

So the talk became more about how thepolicy was a tool to persuade Indians to use less cash and enter the so-called"digital economy".

然后讲话就更多倾向于这个政策是为了促使印度人少用现金，进入所谓的“数字经济”。

"We can now see a positive momentumtowards digital transactions in India," said Mr Modi in a New Year address."More and more people are transacting digitally."

“我们现在能看到，在印度出现了迈向数字交易的积极势头，”莫迪先生在新年贺词中说。“越来越多的人使用数字交易。”



More than half of Indians still don't havea bank account, and some 300 million have no government identification

超过一半的印度人仍然没有银行账户，还有大概3亿人没有正式身份

There certainly was a dramatic increase indigital transactions but, at the same time, the InternationalMonetary Fund cut its growth forecast for India by one percentage point.

数字交易的确戏剧化地增加了，但是同时，国际货币基金组织把对印度发展的预期砍掉了一个百分点。

The other objective that came to the forewas the effort to tackle India's rampant tax evasion.

另一个被推到前台的目标是打击印度猖獗的偷漏税行为。

Because so much business is done in cashhere it is very easy to evade tax - and many, many Indians do. Figures releasedlast year showed just 1% of the population paid income tax in 2013.

因为绝大多数交易都是采用现金支付，所以逃税非常简单——很多很多印度人都逃税。去年的一个数据显示在2013年只有1%的人口交了个人所得税。

This is one area where the policy may haveactually been quite successful.

在这个领域，这项政策倒是非常成功。

Between 1 April and 5 August more than 5.6million people filled in their income tax returns thisyear, according to Mr Modi. Last year the figure was just 2.2 million over thesame period.

根据莫迪先生的说法，从4月1日到8月5日间，超过560万人填了他们的报税单。去年同期的缴税人数只有220万人。

But boredom and political spin aside thereis another, even more compelling reason why Indians aren't more annoyed aboutthe shortcomings of the policy.

但是枯燥无味和政治扭曲宣传则是另一个，可能也是更具有决定性的原因，使印度人不会对这项政策的落空感到不满。

The truth is that, nine months on and theworst hardships of demonetisation are over and, in a country as poor as India,most people have more pressing issues to think about than whether or not agovernment policy, however disruptive, has worked.

真实情况是，九个月以来，废钞令造成的最痛苦的时刻已经过去，而且在像印度这么贫穷的国家，大多数人有更多更急迫的问题要去考虑，没人有心思去管政府的政策是否生效了，尽管这个政策破坏力十足。