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: Why is there this obsession with 100 days? Is it because there is a nice ring to it? It can’t be a reference to the Bollywood film where Madhuri Dixit has visions. Nor can it be a reference to the other film named 100 days, about the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The Chinese talk about a 100-day reform attempt, undertaken in 1898 by a young emperor. While this was primarily political (transition to democracy) and contemplated modernisation of army, there were elements of revamping the education system and moving towards a market-based economy. However, conservative opponents hit back and there was a coup. Therefore, Chinese imagery doesn’t augur well. But we aren’t that close to the Chinese. Perhaps the imagery is Western — Allied Offensive in 1918 or that associated with US Presidents since Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933. At least, these two instances were successful, unlike the Chinese one or Napoleon’s last 100-day campaign. Given Indian conditions today, New Deal is particularly apt. Borrowing a phrase from Stuart Chase’s book, Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech promised, “Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth… I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.”
Accordingly, New Deal was associated with elements like increased government regulation, control over banks, an emergency budget de-linked from the regular budget so that it could be based on deficit financing, hikes in prices to farmers, rural welfare projects, rural electrification, rural roads, price controls on industry, greater resort to State planning and social security. Lest we forget, Supreme Court judges were also chosen so that they didn’t block what Roosevelt proposed. Economists still debate what these policies achieved, though policies themselves evolved over time. Henry Morgenthau was Treasury Secretary and this is what he wrote in his diary in 1939. “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of...
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