The day the power went off in Delhi and northern India, I was at home in Bangalore, a city that fortunately escaped the blackout. It brought back memories of my student days in Kolkata, a city then (in the 1980s) notorious for its power cuts. Eight or 10 hours without electricity were de rigueur. The fan would stop working at night: at 38C and 90 per cent humidity, this meant no sleep until the power came back. We would gather outside, talking in groups, varying our routine by walking to the highway that ran alongside our campus, where dhabas served tea (and stronger stuff) all night.
德里及印度北部停电的那天，我正在班加罗尔的家里，这座城市幸运地未受波及。这让我想起了我在加尔各答上学的日子，当时（上世纪80年代）加尔各答以频频停电而臭名远扬。每天停电8至10小时是家常便饭。晚上电扇会停转，而气温高达38摄氏度，空气湿度达90%，这意味着，来电之前根本没法睡觉。我们就聚在室外，扎堆儿聊天，或向校园旁的高速公路走去，而不是像通常一样在原地干等来电。高速公路边的Dhaba（印度公路旁边的餐馆——译者注）通宵供应茶水（以及一些更带劲儿的饮品）。
Even now, many villages have electricity for only four to six hours a day and some still have no power at all. As a student, I awoke when the fan went off. On the other hand, peasants wake themselves up when the lights come back, to use the tubewells that irrigate their fields.
即便到了现在，很多村庄每天也只有4至6个小时有电，有些村庄甚至仍不通电。当时作为学生的我是电扇一停转就醒过来，而农民则是灯一亮就起床，好抓住有电的时机使用管井灌溉庄稼。
Indians have long been used to erratic power supply; yet the recent outages were special, spectacular in their scale and impact. Twenty one out of 28 states were without power for long stretches. Some 600m Indians were affected. It is not yet clear what caused the collapse. With the monsoon having failed, it is far hotter and drier than is usual at this time of year, driving the rich to use more air conditioning and peasants to rely more heavily on their tubewells. In the rush to satisfy their citizens, individual states drew more than their share from the National Grid. As The Hindu newspaper reported, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttarakhand all "ignored strong warnings from the . . . Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to maintain grid discipline and stop over-drawal".
印度人早已习惯了不稳定的电力供应；但近期的停电比较特殊，其规模和影响比较惊人。印度的28个邦中有21个遭遇长时间停电。约6亿印度人受到影响。目前尚不清楚大停电的原因。今年的季风带来的降雨偏少，天气比往年同期更加炎热干燥，结果富人的空调使用量增加，农民也更加依赖管井。个别邦急于满足本邦居民的需求，从印度国家电网(National Grid)汲取了超出其配额的电量。《印度教徒报》(The Hindu)报道称，北方邦、旁遮普邦、拉贾斯坦邦、哈里亚纳邦和北阿坎德邦全都"无视中央电力监管委员会(Central Electricity Regulatory Commission)要求遵守电网纪律、停止过度用电的强烈警告"。
Behind this short-term political desperation lies a longer-term institutional decline. Back in the 1990s, the distinguished energy scientist A.K.N. Reddy outlined a strategy to overcome India's energy crisis. This focused on reducing theft and distribution losses (estimated at 30-40 per cent of total consumption), upgrading transmission and end-use technologies and running state electricity boards professionally. The suggestions were disregarded. Antiquated technologies were not replaced. Political interference and corruption continued.
在这种短期的政治层面的丧失信心背后，隐藏着一种较长期的机构层面的衰败。上世纪90年代，杰出的能源科学家A•K•N•雷迪(A.K.N. Reddy)提出了一项解决印度能源危机的战略。这项战略的重点是减少偷电和配电损失（估计占电力总消耗量的30%至40%），升级输电和终端使用技术，并让专家来管理国家电力委员会(State Electricity Board)。但这些建议无人重视。过时的技术没有得到替换。政治干预和腐败依然存在。
On the same day as the power outage in the north, some bogies in a train in south India caught fire. Forty passengers perished. Although less widely reported in the western media, this accident was likewise symptomatic of the failure of state-run institutions that are crucial to social wellbeing. Hundreds of millions of Indians use the railways every year. They are indispensable to work and family life, carrying migrants back to their homes and to their first jobs.
印度北方大停电的同一天，印度南方一列火车的部分转向架起火。40名乘客遇难。虽然这起事故在西方媒体中报道得较少，但它同样反映出那些对于社会福祉至关重要的国营机构的失灵。每年有数亿名印度人乘坐火车。火车对于工作和家庭生活而言不可或缺，印度农民工走出家乡寻找第一份工作和返回家乡都要乘坐火车。
Between April 2010 and March 2012, the Indian railway system suffered 218 accidents, in which some 500 people died. Successive railway ministers have disregarded safety and technological modernisation in favour of running more lines to their own states and constituencies.
2010年4月至2012年3月，印度铁路系统发生218起事故，导致约500人丧生。连续几任铁道部长均无视安全和技术现代化，只喜欢往自己的邦和选区多开设几趟车。
As with railways and electricity boards, so also with public health and education departments. Indeed, the degradation of state institutions is perhaps the most serious threat to the vitality of Indian democracy and to the long-term success of India's "growth story".
铁路和电力委员会如此，公共医疗和教育部门亦不例外。实际上，国家公共机构的衰败可能对印度民主的活力以及印度"增长故事"的长远成功构成最严重的威胁。
Four years ago, I wrote an essay for Outlook magazine, mocking the claim – then commonly made by the country's political, business and media elite – that India could or would become a superpower. I argued that despite electoral democracy and high growth rates, there remained pervasive faultlines. These included religious and caste chauvinisms, rising social inequalities, corruption and environmental degradation. I was not optimistic that these faultlines would be easily corrected, given the "decline in the quality and capability of our politicians and public officials" and "the apathy and corruption of the state".
4年前，我为《印度嘹望》杂志(Outlook)撰写了一篇文章，嘲讽了当时印度政界、商界和媒体界精英常说的一句话：印度能够或将会成为超级大国。我认为，尽管印度有选举民主和较高的经济增长率，但"断层线"依然普遍存在，包括宗教和种姓沙文主义、社会不公加剧、腐败以及环境恶化。考虑到"我们政客和公共部门官员的素质和能力的下滑"以及"国家的冷漠和腐败"，我对这些"断层线"能轻易得到修正不抱乐观看法。
I further argued that: "in the short term, at any rate, the Indian political class can only get more corrupt, and the Indian state more inefficient. In the current, fragmented, political scenario, short-term rent-seeking will take precedence over long-term policy formulation. This shall be true of governments in the states, as well as at the centre". Far from becoming a superpower, I concluded, India would muddle along in the middle – as it always had. At the time, I was derided as a party-pooper and professional sceptic. I was accused of lacking patriotism and even of being a "western stool pigeon".
我在文中进一步指出："无论如何，在短期内，印度政治阶层都只会变得更加腐败，印度这个国家都只会变得更加效率低下。在目前这种四分五裂的政治局面下，政府将优先考虑短期寻租，而不是长期政策的制定。对各邦政府而言是如此，对中央政府而言亦是如此。"我的结论是，印度成不了超级大国，它仍会像以往那样，在中等国家俱乐部里混日子。我被奚落为"扫兴之人"和"职业怀疑论者"。人们指责我缺乏爱国精神，甚至是"西方的卧底"。
So far as I can tell, the short-term is still with us. How else to explain the fact that on the very day the lights went off in 21 states, the power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, was promoted to the post of home minister? His tenure in his previous position was undistinguished. However, he is a long-term loyalist (not to say acolyte) of the Congress party's president, Sonia Gandhi. Besides, he hails from Maharashtra, where a state election is due in a few months.
在我看来，这种短视依然伴随着我们。否则如何解释恰恰在21个邦停电的同一天，电力部长苏希尔•库马尔•欣德(Sushil Kumar Shinde)被提升为内政部长？欣德在担任电力部长期间表现平平，但他长期效忠于国大党主席索妮娅•甘地(Sonia Gandhi)（甚至可以说是她的助手）。而且，欣德来自马哈拉施特拉邦，几个月后那里将举行邦选举。
I need only add that, in these respects, the Congress is not exceptional. In Indian politics and public administration, personal loyalty and the appeasement of special interests take precedence over professional competence and the public good.
我唯一需要补充的是，在上述各方面，国大党与其他政治力量并没有什么不同。在印度的政治和公共管理中，个人忠诚和迎合特殊利益集团优先于专业能力和公共利益。