“The systemic, long-term nexus between the political elites and big business will not go away anytime soon,” wrote journalist M. K. Venu  in 2015. Writing in the aftermath of Obama’s second visit to India, Venu suggested that “crony capitalism” had to be grasped in a deeper sense to reflect not the odd favors bestowed on this or that industrialist by the government of the day but the system that cemented the ties between state and capital, in this case a handful of family-owned businesses that knew they could always depend on India’s governing class, starting with the prime minister. Venu cited a revealing example of this bond.