India and the plausible multilateralism of BRICS

Why in the News

The 18th BRICS summit has been held in New Delhi and has produced a consensus declaration among all 11 member countries. It was the first annual summit of the grouping since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran in February 2026, and the host was a close strategic partner of both. India used the occasion to restore a balancing position in West Asia, after initially declining to condemn the strikes, and it received the President of Iran in Delhi while the war continued. The contested point is whether a grouping carrying deep internal divisions, and a standing risk of Russian and Chinese domination, protects India’s room for manoeuvre or dilutes its partnership with Washington.

How is BRICS read within India’s strategic community?

1. The optimists: They argue that BRICS can function as an institution capable of multipolarising the global order, or of expediting that transition.
2. The sceptics: They point to the grouping’s internal divisions and to the possibility of its domination by Russia and China.
3. The dismissive view: A third group writes BRICS off as an annual gathering that generates strategic noise. It argues that India should limit its association with the grouping and expand its partnership with the United States instead.

What made the Delhi summit consequential?

1. Timing: The summit was held on 12 and 13 September 2026, the first since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran on 28 February 2026. The Presidents of Iran, Russia and China were among the leaders present.
2. Consensus among 11 members: New Delhi secured agreement among all 11 member countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran, which are involved in an undeclared conflict.
3. The Delhi Declaration: The document records that member countries continue to find value in a BRICS worldview rooted in the pursuit of a more representative global order.
4. Compromise as the method: The consensus was reached through compromises by every party rather than through convergence on a single position.

How did India restore its balancing position in West Asia?

1. The starting position: The Prime Minister was in Israel two days before Israel and the United States began bombing Iran. India then refrained from condemning the attacks or the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, which created an impression that New Delhi was siding with Washington and Tel Aviv.
2. The diplomatic cost: Pakistan seized the opening created by the war and stepped in as a mediator between the United States and Iran while India watched from the sidelines.
3. The correction at Bishkek: India strongly endorsed the September resolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian security grouping, condemning the strikes on Iran and expressing condolences over the killing.
4. The correction at Delhi: India hosted the President of Iran at the BRICS summit even as the war in West Asia continued.
5. Why the platform matters: A multilateral forum let India recover a balancing posture without inflicting strategic damage on its bilateral relationships.

Why does India keep engaging its competitors through the grouping?

1. A channel that survives a bilateral freeze: Border problems with China continue to simmer with no immediate resolution. The forum keeps India and China engaged even when high level bilateral visits are not taking place.
2. The cost of disengagement: A lack of engagement between competing major powers deepens mistrust. Mistrust combined with the security dilemma of their competition carries dangerous consequences.
3. Guardrails for competitive coexistence: The two countries have to manage a troubled relationship rather than resolve it, and sustained bilateral and multilateral contact is what keeps the competition bounded.
4. Convergence against unilateralism: On artificial intelligence regulation, the rules governing global trade and finance, climate change, border conflicts, and the role of multilateral bodies, members hold different priorities. They converge on the position that unilateralism by any bloc or power damages their interests.

What does the American context add to the summit?

1. A predictable approach: The United States approach to the rest of the world is predictable in that it subordinates other considerations to its own dominance.
2. Tariffs on India: India was subjected to varying tariffs by Washington a few months before the summit.
3. Economic exposure from the war: India was among the countries most affected economically by the United States and Israel war on Iran.
4. The sanctions legislation: The United States House of Representatives passed the Russia sanctions Bill on 16 September, seeking tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries including India.
5. The Indian formulation: India’s foreign policy has been read by a section of commentators as a tilt towards the American camp, on the strength of the Prime Minister’s own statement that India had overcome its “hesitation of history”. The parallel official formulation of multi alignment, stated as ‘sabke sath’, has run alongside it throughout.

What do the frontline cases show about great power alignment?

1. Pakistan: A state that became a frontier in great power rivalry carries the cost of that position long after the rivalry that produced it has moved on.
2. The UAE and Iran: Both would have been better placed dealing with each other than facing their present situation. Their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Delhi summit used a multilateral platform to address a bilateral problem.
3. Ukraine: Backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it has fought Russia for more than four years and holds no platform for direct contact with Moscow. Its diplomatic options therefore rest with Brussels and Washington rather than with itself.
4. The Indian conclusion drawn: The strategic partnership with Washington remains important for India’s progress, and the outcome India must avoid is becoming a frontline in the competition between the United States and China.

Challenges to BRICS as a vehicle for Indian strategic autonomy

1. The weight of the largest economy: The grouping’s economic and institutional centre of gravity sits with China, so an agenda item can carry Chinese preferences without being stated as such. Eg. The push to admit countries heavily dependent on Chinese lending widens the membership in a direction that suits one member.
   The Fix: Fix written membership criteria for new entrants and partner countries, so admission turns on economic fit rather than on a sponsor’s preference.
2. No secretariat and no charter: BRICS runs on rotating chairs and summit declarations, so a commitment made at one summit has no standing body to carry it to the next. Eg. The grouping has no permanent secretariat of the kind the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations maintain.
   The Fix: Create a small standing secretariat with a mandate limited to tracking implementation of summit commitments.
3. De dollarisation moves slower than the declarations: Local currency settlement remains marginal against a dollar that still clears the overwhelming share of global trade and reserves. Eg. India and the UAE settled a crude oil payment in rupees and dirhams, which remains an exception rather than a channel.
   The Fix: Link the existing local currency settlement arrangements into one interoperable messaging and clearing layer, so a bilateral experiment becomes a usable route.
4. Low trade among the members themselves: Members trade more with advanced economies than with each other, which limits what a shared declaration can deliver commercially. Eg. Most members still depend on G7 markets for high technology imports and services exports.
   The Fix: Prioritise tariff and standards work in a few sectors where member complementarity is real, rather than a general trade agenda across 11 economies.
5. Expansion dilutes the agenda: A larger membership with wider political differences lowers the ambition of what a consensus document can say. Eg. The grouping now spans functioning democracies and authoritarian states, which keeps human rights and governance language out of joint texts.
   The Fix: Run substantive work through issue based coalitions of willing members, leaving the full summit to agree only what all members can carry.

Conclusion

India’s case for BRICS does not rest on the grouping being cohesive. It rests on the grouping giving a middle power somewhere to stand that is neither an alliance nor an isolation, which is what a country facing tariffs from one partner and a border dispute with another actually needs. The internal contradictions and the external convergence work against each other, and that unresolved pull is what keeps any one member from owning the platform. What to watch is whether the Delhi Declaration’s commitments acquire any machinery to carry them forward, and whether the Russia sanctions legislation is applied to India in a way that forces the choice this grouping exists to postpone.

About BRICS

1. Origin: The term was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist to identify high growth emerging economies. The first leaders’ summit was held at Yekaterinburg in Russia in 2009.
2. Membership: South Africa joined in 2011, and expansion decided at the 2023 Johannesburg Summit brought in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025.
3. Weight: The grouping accounts for over 45 per cent of the world’s population and roughly 37 per cent of global gross domestic product measured by purchasing power parity, a share larger than that of the G7.
4. Partner country category: Introduced in 2024, it engages states such as Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria without granting full membership.

Initiatives under BRICS

1. New Development Bank: Headquartered at Shanghai, it lends for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in member and partner countries, and has approved over $35 billion in loans.
2. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A $100 billion fund that provides short term liquidity support to a member facing balance of payments pressure.
3. BRICS Pay: A cross border payment system in pilot stage, intended to settle trade among members without routing through existing Western messaging networks.
4. Partnership on New Industrial Revolution: A cooperation programme covering artificial intelligence, digitalisation and green technology among member states.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”