印度宪法充满了各种崇高理念。序言承诺每位公民享有正义、自由和平等，更不用说尊严。正文列出了众多机构，旨在保障这些权利。而几乎在文件刚刚落笔之际，印度的新领导人便开始产生二念。宪法第一修正案对言论自由权施加了“合理限制”。第二十四修正案明确规定议会甚至可以修改关于基本权利的条款。随着1976年在英迪拉·甘地实施的紧急状态期间通过的第四十二修正案，情况达到了低谷——议会在进一步削弱印度人权利的同时，还创设了所谓的“基本义务”。
THE CONSTITUTION of India is filled with all sorts of noble ideas. The preamble promises every citizen justice, liberty and equality, to say nothing of dignity. The body lays out a dizzying array of institutions designed to secure those rights. And then, almost as soon as the ink had dried on the document, India’s new leaders started having second thoughts. The first amendment to the constitution imposed “reasonable restrictions” on the right to free speech. The 24th made explicit that parliament can alter even the parts about fundamental rights. Things reached a nadir with the 42nd amendment, passed in 1976 during a state of emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, when, not satisfied with further curtailing Indians’ rights, parliament also created something called “fundamental duties”.
紧急状态最终结束。但权利的削弱并未停止。历届政府削弱或颠覆了独立机构。自2014年上台以来，纳伦德拉·莫迪延续了这种跨党派传统。在他的统治下，调查机构被许多人视为其所属的印度人民党（BJP）的执法臂膀，议会常常沦为橡皮图章，法院对维护个人自由也显得异常冷淡。大多数印度人对此视而不见。对绝大多数人而言，还有更紧迫的关切。
The Emergency eventually ended. But the chipping away of rights did not. Successive governments have kneecapped or subverted independent institutions. Narendra Modi has continued this cross-party tradition since coming to power in 2014. Under his rule investigative agencies are seen by many as the enforcement arm of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), parliament has frequently resembled a rubber stamp, and the courts have become curiously uninterested in upholding individual liberty. Indians, for the most part, have turned a blind eye. For the vast majority, there are more pressing concerns.
然而，有一项权利在印度人眼中极为严肃，那就是投票权。每五年，他们走向投票站，在被广泛认为自由公平的大选中表达赞同或不满。在此期间，政治人物专横统治，假装选民不存在，甚至侵占公共资金。只要公民相信在选举日能够惩罚统治者，他们就会容忍许多不满。这就是印度社会契约的本质。
Yet there is one right Indians take with deadly seriousness. That is the right to vote. Every five years they march to the polls to express approval or frustration in vast elections that are widely considered free and fair. In the interim politicians rule with imperiousness, pretend that voters don’t exist and help themselves to public money. Fine. So long as citizens believe they have the power to punish their rulers come election day, they will put up with a lot. This is the essence of India’s social contract.
正是这种被侵犯的感觉，使得最近反对莫迪政府的抗议活动触及了敏感神经。在政府声称旨在“净化”选民名单、剔除重复和已故选民的“特别密集修订”中，该国近10亿登记选民中约有1.3亿人被从选民名单上除名。批评者称，这使数百万公民，甚至可能数千万人，丧失了选举权。这两种说法都可能属实。上个月，《印度快报》透露，印度选举委员会的三名委员中有两人，至少14次反对该委员会主席贾尼什·库马尔所做出的决定。
The sense that it is being violated is why the latest protests against Mr Modi’s government have touched a nerve. Some 130m of the country’s nearly 1bn registered voters have been struck off electoral lists in a “special intensive revision” that the government says is necessary to “purify” the rolls of duplicates and the dead. Critics say it has disenfranchised millions of citizens, perhaps tens of millions. Both of these things may well be true. Last month the Indian Express, a newspaper, revealed that two of the three commissioners of the supposedly independent Election Commission of India had objected at least 14 times to decisions taken under its chief, Gyanesh Kumar.
该委员会否认了这一说法。但抗议者在十月的大部分时间里走上街头，要求他辞职，并将其描绘为印度人民党的傀儡。
The commission denied this. But protesters have spent much of October on the streets demanding his resignation, painting him as a BJP stooge.
早在特别修订之前，印度人民党就已在一个又一个州，利用卑鄙的政治手段和对机构的控制，瓦解对手政党并诱使其议员叛逃。选民们对此习以为常，就像他们曾经习惯于该国更为无法无天的地区，武装人员常常占据投票站并塞满选票一样。同样，他们至今仍容忍猖獗的买票行为，无论是合法的（来自国家的现金补贴）还是非法的（来自候选人的现金补贴）。所有这一切都被视为游戏的一部分。如今受到质疑的是一个更根本的问题：游戏本身是否被操纵。
Well before the special revision the BJP had in state after state used sleazy political tactics and its control of institutions to break up rival parties and lure away their lawmakers. Voters accepted that just as they once accepted armed men routinely capturing polling booths and stuffing ballots in the more lawless parts of the country. And just as they still accept rampant vote-buying, both legal (cash handouts from the state) and illegal (cash handouts from candidates). All of this is seen as part of the game. Under dispute now is the much more fundamental question of whether the game itself is fixed.
印度的政界人士应当觉得自己很幸运。就在邻国中国，共产党需要完成的任务远比赢得选举艰难得多。中国的社会契约要求政府不断提升民众的生活水平、生活质量以及国家实力，作为交换，民众则不得干涉政治。而印度的政客们只需每五年装作关心一次选民即可。然而，莫迪政府非但没有珍惜这一难得的“优待”，反而变本加厉地镇压那些试图促使这一契约得以落实的抗议活动。
India’s political class should consider itself lucky. In next-door China, the Communist Party has to do something much more difficult than winning elections. China’s social contract requires the state to consistently raise living standards, the quality of life and national power in exchange for which citizens keep their noses out of politics. All Indian politicians have to do is to feign interest in their constituents once every five years. Yet instead of accepting this sweetheart deal, Mr Modi’s government is doubling down by suppressing protests that are attempting to enforce it.
凡是进过印度厨房的人都对高压锅再熟悉不过——这种可怕的器具会每隔一段时间便发出震耳欲聋的尖啸声，将积聚的蒸汽排出，其规律与选举周期颇为相似。不过，一旦这个正常的泄压通道被堵住，便会出现两种结果：要么安全阀破裂，滚烫的蒸汽四处喷涌；要么压力不断累积，直至整个结构发生灾难性的崩塌。正是为了防止这种“爆炸”的发生，印度的建国者们才在宪法中设置了多重安全阀。如今把这些阀门全部堵死，不仅极其危险，更是愚蠢至极。
Anyone who has ever set foot in an Indian kitchen will be familiar with the pressure cooker, a terrifying contraption that lets out an almighty shriek to vent its accumulated steam at predictable intervals, not unlike an election cycle. If that usual outlet is blocked, however, one of two things can happen. A safety valve breaks, letting loose a paroxysm of scalding steam everywhere. Or the pressure grows—and grows and grows—until there is a catastrophic structural failure. It is to prevent precisely such an explosion that India’s founders added safety valves to the constitution. To block them all is not just dangerous. It is foolish.