FOR MANY years the Hindu nationalists’ student group at Jadavpur University in Kolkata was so unpopular that it imported middle-aged activists to pad out its rallies.(多年来，加尔各答贾达普大学里印度教民族主义者的学生团体极不受欢迎，以至于他们需要引进中年活动人士来充实集会。) But in May the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party led by Narendra Modi, the prime minister, won West Bengal, the state that has Kolkata as its capital. For days in August emboldened(受到鼓舞的，大胆的) students assaulted leftist rivals and torched(纵火焚烧) their flags and posters. A minister urged more such “surgical strikes(外科手术式打击)”. “They have the muscle power(肌肉力量，武力) and the money power,” complains a 19-year-old political-science major, “and now they will start controlling this campus.”
多年来，加尔各答贾达普大学里印度教民族主义者的学生团体极不受欢迎，以至于他们需要引进中年活动人士来充实集会。但在五月，由总理纳伦德拉·莫迪领导的印度人民党（BJP）赢得了以加尔各答为首府的西孟加拉邦。八月间，受到鼓舞的学生袭击了左翼对手，焚烧了他们的旗帜和海报。一位部长呼吁更多此类“外科手术式打击”。“他们既有肌肉力量又有金钱力量，”一位19岁的政治学专业学生抱怨道，“现在他们将开始控制这个校园。”
Until now, West Bengal has been everything the Hindu-nationalist BJP is not: secular, left-leaning(左倾的) and abysmal(极坏的，糟糕的) at business. So victory for the party, its first-ever in the state, was especially sweet. But the mismatch(不匹配，错配) also makes West Bengal among the biggest headaches the BJP has had to cope with(应对，处理) in its 12 years of ruling India. The party promised big changes in its first 100 days, which expired on August 17th. But it has found waging culture wars is easier than fixing the economy.(但它发现，发动文化战争比修复经济更容易。)
迄今为止，西孟加拉邦一直是印度教民族主义的印度人民党所不具备的一切：世俗、左倾且商业上糟糕透顶。因此，该党在该邦的首次胜利尤为甜蜜。但这种不匹配也使西孟加拉邦成为印度人民党执政印度12年来不得不应对的最大难题之一。该党承诺在执政头100天内进行重大变革，这一期限已于8月17日到期。但它发现，发动文化战争比修复经济更容易。
For decades Communists and the Trinamool Congress, a regional party, ran West Bengal in fairly similar style. Their appetite(嗜好，欲望) for bribes and aversion(厌恶，反感) to business reduced what was once one of India’s industrial strongholds to a “syndicate raj(辛迪加统治)” of dodgy(可疑的，靠不住的) influence-peddling. May’s election unseated(使下台，罢免) Trinamool’s Mamata Banerjee, a three-term chief minister and a fierce critic of Mr Modi. Many did not vote for the BJP so much as against her party’s corruption and thuggery(暴行，流氓行为).
几十年来，共产党人和地区政党崔纳木国大党以相当相似的方式治理西孟加拉邦。他们对贿赂的嗜好和对商业的厌恶，将曾经是印度工业重镇之一的地区沦为充斥着可疑权钱交易的“辛迪加统治”。五月的选举将崔纳木党的玛玛塔·班纳吉赶下台，她曾连任三届首席部长，也是莫迪的激烈批评者。许多人与其说是投票支持印度人民党，不如说是反对她所在政党的腐败和暴行。