【来源龙腾网】

评论原创翻译：

Balaji Viswanathan

(资料图片)

In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple. Years of poor decisions took them to a near death. This picture culminates their ultimate humiliation. Here, Steve stands small before the big beaming screen of Bill Gates who threw in a pocket change ($150m) to keep his old rival alive. Look at the body language of both. There was a time Bill Gates used to wait in the office to get a sighting of Steve Jobs. Things reversed.

Steve Jobs must have been fuming even while biting his teeth and ego to accept that gift from Bill Gates. Despite his company being a fraction of Microsoft’s and other companies, he knew he will come back. Because, he created that part of the industry.

In some sense, that is how upper middle/upper class Indians see of ourselves.

For 90% of human history, we have been the world’s top economy. 4000 years ago had the world’s largest civilization — Indus Valley Civilization was bigger than the other 3 Bronze age civilizations put together. It had superior city planning and standards. From 1000–500 BCE, we brought a range of religious and philosophical ideas. From about 300 to 700 CE, we created brilliant work in mathematics, physics etc that became the foundation for modern sciences as the Arabs brought the ideas to the western world. We created stunning work of literature — through Kalidasa, Valmiki and Vyasa. In 1400s, sailors in Europe would put their lives at stake to find a new route to India and get a chance to trade with that. We produced the most amount of food and the most amount of art.

However, in the past few centuries, a number of bad decisions and bad luck pushed us down from the pedestal. Capitalizing on our mistakes a few outsiders ruled the roost. In the past few decades, we have been reversing all that.

Like the Steve Jobs of the picture above, we were forced to smilingly accept the humiliation. In our minds, we know who we are, but for the world we are a small entity for now. We know we will come back to our old ranking and status sooner or later.

We are confident now because for 1000s of years we have figured out a way to lead the humanity in various aspects. While we have a lot of poverty and challenges now, we have improved substantially over the past 3 decades and we know what strength we have to tap into.

In a decade, we are expected to be the 3rd largest economy and as China’s population ages, India has a fair chance to become #1 in the next 40 years. Might look like a long time, but in the long arc of history this is nothing.

1997年，史蒂夫-乔布斯回到了几乎破产的苹果公司。多年来的错误决定使这个公司濒临死亡。这张照片将他们的耻辱推向了高潮。在这里，史蒂夫站在比尔-盖茨照片的大屏幕前，显得很渺小，比尔-盖茨为了让他的老对手活下来，投了一点“零钱”（1.5亿美元）。看看两人的身体语言。曾几何时，比尔-盖茨常常坐在办公室里，等着史蒂夫-乔布斯来找他。但是事情发生了逆转。

史蒂夫-乔布斯在接受比尔-盖茨的那份礼物时，一定是一边咬着牙，一边抑制着自尊。尽管他的公司和微软以及其他公司相比微不足道，但他知道自己会回来的。因为，这个行业的那一部分是他创造的。

在某种意义上，这就是中上/上层印度人对自己的看法。

在人类历史上90%的时间里，我们一直是世界第一大经济体。4000年前就拥有世界上最大的文明--印度河谷文明，比其他三个青铜时代的文明加起来还要大。它有着卓越的城市规划和标准。从公元前1000-500年，我们带来了一系列的宗教和哲学思想。从公元前300年到700年，我们在数学、物理学等方面创造了辉煌的成就，成为现代科学的基础，因为阿拉伯人将这些思想带到了西方世界。我们通过迦梨陀娑、跋弥和毗耶娑等作家创造了令人惊叹的文学作品。在14世纪，欧洲的水手们将他们的生命置于危险之中，以寻找通往印度的新航线，获得与之贸易的机会。我们生产了最多的食物和最多的艺术品。

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

然而，在过去的几个世纪里，一些错误的决定和糟糕的运气把我们从神坛上推了下来。利用我们的错误，几个外来者统治了整个世界。在过去的几十年里，我们一直在扭转这一切。

就像上图中的史蒂夫-乔布斯，我们被迫微笑着接受羞辱。在我们心中，我们知道自己是谁，但对于世界来说，我们暂时只是一个小实体。我们知道，我们迟早会回到我们以前的排名和地位。

我们现在很有信心，因为1000多年来，我们已经找到了一种在各个方面领导人类的方法。虽然我们现在有很多贫困和挑战，但在过去30年里，我们已经有了很大的进步，我们知道我们有什么力量可以利用。

十年后，我们有望成为第三大经济体，随着中国人口的老龄化，印度有相当的机会在未来40年成为第一大经济体。可能看起来时间很长，但在历史的长河中，这不算什么。

Snigdh Sinha

Balaji: it would be a much fairer comparison if some per capita metric is considered instead of total GDP without normalising it for population.

巴拉吉，如果考虑一些人均指标而不是不对人口进行标准化的GDP总量，那将是一个更公平的比较。

Ethan Griffin

Total economic wealth is a much better indicator of leverage on the world stage though. If Elon Musk started a country & he was the only resident they’d have a ridiculous per capita income — but no real hard power on the world stage.

Per capita is a great indicator for how wealthy any individual member of the society is (though median income is better) total GDP is better when comparing countries though.

不过，经济财富总量是衡量世界舞台上影响力的一个更好的指标。如果埃隆-马斯克建立了一个国家，并且他是唯一的居民，那么它的人均指标会高得离谱 - 但在世界舞台上并没有真正的硬实力。

人均是衡量社会中任何个人成员富裕程度的重要指标（尽管收入中位数更好），但在比较国家时，用GDP总量更好。

Raj Siva

In a previous answer, Balaji mentioned that India"s GDP per square mile is comparable to America. So, we aren"t doing that badly.

Our main challenge is making every individual, more productive. For this we need to move people from agriculture to industry.

But people in many rural areas are reluctant to give up land, to setup industries, and rather want govt to keep subsidising their agriculture from urban tax money. Obviously, they don"t grow, and they pull down everyone else.

在之前的回答中，巴拉吉提到过印度每平方英里的GDP与美国相当。所以，我们做得并不差。

我们的主要挑战是提高每个人的工作效率。为此，我们需要将人们从农业转移到工业。

但许多农村地区的人们不愿意放弃土地，不愿意建立工业，而是希望政府继续用城市税收补贴他们的农业。显然，他们不会成长，他们会拉低其他人的水平。