When he settles down in his office on the 19th floor of the Reserve Bank of India for the first time next Wednesday, Raghuram Rajan will be greeted by calming views over Mumbai’s harbour and the monsoon-soaked hills beyond. But as he contemplates his new role as the central bank’s governor, the predicament facing his nation could hardly be less tranquil.

当拉古拉姆•拉詹(Raghuram Rajan)本周三第一次在印度央行(Reserve Bank of India)大楼19层的办公室落座时，迎接他的将是一幅恬静美景：孟买港口和更远处经过雨水洗礼的山峦。然而，当他思考自己作为印度央行行长的新职责时，他的国家所处的境遇可远远算不上恬静。

Mr Rajan is one of India’s most celebrated sons: a brilliant University of Chicago economist who won special renown as one of the few in his profession to foresee the global financial crisis. Yet early last year he received an unexpected phone call asking him to leave America and return home, first as an adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; and, early this August, as his country’s most senior financial regulator.

拉詹是印度最受赞誉的人士之一：此前他是芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)一名杰出的经济学家，作为预见到全球金融危机的寥寥几个经济学家之一，赢得特别的声誉。然而，去年初，他意外接到一个电话，邀请他离开美国回到印度，回国后，他先是担任印度总理曼莫汉•辛格(Manmohan Singh)的顾问；接着，今年8月初，他被任命为印度最高金融监管者。

The appointment attracted global attention on account of Mr Rajan’s intellectual stature, but more particularly because it thrust him into the heart of India’s growing economic struggles. Its once-stellar growth rate has slumped, while fears of reduced US Federal Reserve quantitative easing have sent the rupee plunging, raising worries that Asia’s third-largest economy could be on the cusp of a genuine financial calamity.

基于拉詹的学术地位，这一任命引起了全球的关注，但外界关注的一个更特别的原因是，这将他一下子推到印度日益加剧的经济困境的风口浪尖。印度曾经举世瞩目的经济增速已经大幅下滑，对于美联储(Fed)缩减量化宽松政策的担忧导致印度卢比汇率下挫，令人担心亚洲第三大经济体可能濒临一场真正的金融灾难。

As a result India is at the vanguard of the wave of crises sweeping through emerging markets, in turn making Mr Rajan a crucial figure in the global battle to stop the turmoil engulfing financial markets in Mumbai and São Paulo cascading onwards and crippling the world’s economic recovery.

其结果是，印度正处于一波席卷新兴市场的危机浪潮的最前沿，进而让拉詹成为遏制这场动荡的全球努力的一个关键人物，这场动荡席卷了孟买和圣保罗的金融市场，并产生溢出效应，影响全球经济复苏。

India last faced such grave financial dangers during its balance of payments crunch in 1991, the year Mr Rajan finished his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and moved to Chicago’s famously free-market economics faculty. His work there focused on the intricacies of financial markets, earning him the Fischer Black Prize for the best academic in his field under 40; and, in 2003, a post as the International Monetary Fund’s youngest ever chief economist.

印度上一次面临如此严重的金融危险是在1991年国际收支危机期间，当年，拉詹在麻省理工大学(MIT)获得了博士学位，并加入了芝加哥大学著名的自由市场经济学教师队伍。他在那里的工作关注于金融市场的复杂性，这为他赢得了费雪•布莱克奖(Fischer Black Prize)，成为他所在领域40岁以下最优秀学者；还使他在2003年成为国际货币基金组织(IMF)有史以来最年轻的首席经济学家。

More than anything, however, his reputation as an unorthodox, creative thinker stems from a paper he presented at a US central banking conclave two years later, warning of the risks posed by growing financial securitisation. It was poorly received, with former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers attacking it for its “basic, slightly Luddite premise”.

然而，他作为一名非传统、有创造性的思想家的名誉，在更大程度上来自于两年后他在美国央行举办的一个会议上宣读论文，对日益扩大的金融证券化所带来的风险提出警告。这一警告并没有得到热烈响应，美国前财长劳伦斯•萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)批评该论文提出的“假设简单而且带有一点勒德主义（Luddite，指厌恶技术进步——译者注）”。

Yet as Lehman Brothers fell, and faith in efficient markets ebbed, Mr Rajan’s portents seemed ever more apt, winning him prestige as a prophet of financial collapse. “Here was a Chicago finance guy going into the lion’s den at a time when the world was enamoured with high finance, and saying maybe markets were going to blow up after all,” says Arvind Subramanian, author of papers with Mr Rajan. “It was a very brave thing to do.”

然而，当雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)倒闭，人们对高效率市场的信心减退时，拉詹的预测似乎空前英明，这为他赢得了“金融危机预言家”的声誉。“当全世界都迷恋于高级复杂金融时，这位芝加哥大学的金融学者却敢唱反调，表示市场可能最终会崩盘。”与拉詹共同撰写多篇论文的阿文德•萨勃拉曼尼亚 (Arvind Subramanian)表示，“做到这点需要很大的勇气。”

Born in the southern Indian city of Chennai in 1963, Mr Rajan comes from a family of Tamil Brahmins, a high-caste grouping noted for its austere intellectualism. His father was a foreign office official, moving from Indonesia to Belgium before his son began studying engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. An MBA followed, during which time he met his wife, Radhika (also an academic), with whom he has a son and daughter.

1963年，拉詹出生于印度南部城市钦奈，他来自一个泰米尔婆罗门家庭，这是一个高种姓族群，以严格的知性主义而闻名。他的父亲担任外交部官员，全家曾从印尼搬到比利时，最后让拉詹在德里的知名学府印度理工学院(Indian Institute of Technology)攻读工程专业。后来拉詹又攻读了MBA学位，其间他遇到了妻子拉迪迦(Radhika，也是一名学者)，二人育有一子一女。

Speak to those who know him and the same descriptions come up: level-headed, diligent, methodical, calm, a good listener. Generous and courteous are often used, too. “What is remarkable about Raghu is that everyone wants him to succeed,” says Jayant Sinha, a university classmate. “Superstar economists like him often are resented, or are arrogant and dismissive. But he is kind and thoughtful, and he inspires tremendous loyalty.” Another compares him to his critic from 2005: “Raghu is just as brilliant as people like [Summers], but so much nicer and more of a team player. Everyone likes him.”

与认识他的人攀谈，听到的是相同的描述：沉稳、勤恳、有条理、冷静、善于倾听。慷慨大方、彬彬有礼也是经常被提到的词。“拉詹的特别之处在于，人人都希望他成功，”大学同学贾扬特•辛哈(Jayant Sinha)说，“像他这样的明星经济学家往往遭人嫉恨，或者傲慢、冷漠。但他却和善、体谅人，激发着人们的巨大忠诚。”另一个人将他与2005年的批评者作对比：“拉詹与萨默斯这样的人同样优秀，但更加和善，更善于团队合作。大家都喜欢他。”

That said, there is a driven edge beneath the affable exterior, which comes out when he relaxes over a game of tennis or squash at New Delhi’s colonial-era Gymkhana club. “He is a nice guy but he is also extremely competitive,” says Luigi Zingales, a long-time academic collaborator. “I remember in Chicago he used to play squash with another colleague, and a few times they got injured because of the intensity at which they played. He likes to win.”

尽管如此，他和蔼可亲的外表下隐藏着充满动力的棱角。他在殖民时代建成的新德里Gymkhana俱乐部打网球或壁球放松时，便表现出这一点。在学术上长期与他合作的路易吉•津加莱斯(Luigi Zingales)说：“他为人和善，但求胜欲望很强。我记得在芝加哥时，他曾经与另一位同事打壁球，因为太过激烈，他们有几次都受伤了。他喜欢获胜。”

That said, Mr Rajan is not without his critics, some of whom doubt his ability to steer India through this storm. The economist Paul Krugman has chided him for an excessively cautious approach, unsuited to times of crisis – he was an early quantitative easing sceptic, for instance. Others fear he will now struggle to navigate India’s labyrinthine bureaucracies, especially after so long away from home.

但拉詹也不是没有批评者，有些人质疑他是否有能力带领印度渡过这场风暴。经济学家保罗•克鲁格曼(Paul Krugman)指责他过于谨慎，不是危机时期的合适人选——例如，他在量化宽松刚出炉时曾怀疑这项政策。其他人担心，离开印度已经多年的他，将很难应对该国庞大繁杂的官僚机构。

There are concerns, too, about how a man accustomed to the adulation of celebrity academia might cope with the unpopularity that often clings to central bankers in moments of tumult. “Will he have the courage to face down the politicians, even if it means jacking up rates like [former Fed chair Paul] Volcker did?” asks one person who knows him. “We’ll just have to see.”

还有人担心，动荡时期的央行行长往往不得人心，习惯于学术名流吹捧的拉詹能否应对自如？“他是否有勇气顶住政客的压力，哪怕这意味着像沃尔克（Paul Volcker，美联储前主席）那样提高利率？”一位熟悉他的人说，“我们只能拭目以待。”

Even so, expectations are high. “He has been out there in the world at the IMF, seeing other countries go into a funk, and get out of it,” says Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, who was Mr Rajan’s predecessor at the fund. “And even if there is a full-blown crisis, and India has to go for help, he will be a great asset. He is the gold standard from the point of view of international lenders.”

即便如此，人们仍对他寄予厚望。哈佛大学(Harvard)的肯尼斯•罗格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)是拉詹在IMF的前任，他表示：“在IMF，他活跃于世界舞台上，见证了其他国家陷入恐惧、走出恐惧的过程。即便有重大危机降临，印度不得不寻求帮助，他也将是一笔宝贵的财富。在国际贷款机构看来，他堪称黄金标准。”

Cornell’s Eswar Prasad concurs.

康奈尔大学(Cornell)的埃斯瓦尔•普拉萨德(Eswar Prasad)表示同意。

“It is going to be an extraordinarily challenging balancing act managing the economics, which is terribly complex, but also the politics too,” he says. “But I think Raghu relishes these sorts of challenges, and the sense that he is on the front line when India needs help is especially powerful for him. India is lucky to have someone like him at a moment like this, too.”

“这项工作格外有挑战性，需要做出艰难的权衡，既要管理十分复杂的经济事务，又要应对政治事务，”他说，“但我觉得，拉詹喜欢这样的挑战，在印度需要帮助时他火线上任，这种感觉尤其让他动力倍增。在这种时刻拥有像他这样的人，是印度的幸运。”