India, Oct. 18 -- The organisers paid in lakhs. The state paid in crores, from budgets it can at least account for. The public paid in time, trade and mobility, in sums claimed loudly and measured badly. Only the platforms and creators earned in crores.

It arrived like a storm nobody had forecast.

Thirty-six days of sit-in at Jantar Mantar, a march on Parliament met with baton charges and tear gas, and the resignation of a Union Minister on 25 July. The agitation that did all this ran, on the most careful estimate made of it, on under Rs 1 crore in cash actually held by its organisers. That estimate puts the movement's whole resource base-money, supplies, travel, the imputed value of participants' time-at Rs 4 crore to Rs 33 crore. Thes...