When Mahendra Singh Tikait and thousands of farmers and their cattle laid siege to Delhi in 1988, their demands were straight-forward and simple – higher procurement price for sugar-cane and lower water and power tariff. As UP’s farmers and their cattle took over Delhi’s snotty Boat Club lawns, their choolas and camp fires and piles of cattle dung reflected the nation and national ethos more accurately than the yuppie, high-salaried I-am-Anna ‘civil society’ thronging Ramlila Maidan.