Way back in the 1980s, the Indian political class acknowledged the corrosive role of lobbyists in military contracts and altogether banned middlemen from defence purchase negotiations. But now it has succumbed to that very influence on a gigantically greater scale—not just in military contracts, but in every sphere. Unless this toxic influence is removed, and lobbying is outlawed and punished, it will undermine and hollow out Indian democracy, our most precious possession. Democracy must be defended against business manipulation and predatory corporate lobbying.