BRICS And India In A Fragmenting World Order

BRICS sits at the intersection of two changes in world politics: economic weight is moving towards emerging economies, while geopolitical rivalry is weakening the institutions expected to manage that transition. India therefore faces a double task. It must use BRICS to widen the voice and options of the Global South, but it must also prevent the grouping from becoming an anti-West bloc or a China-centred alternative order. The question is no longer whether BRICS matters. It is whether a larger and more divided BRICS can convert demographic and economic scale into legitimate, practical and balanced cooperation.

From Economic Acronym To Political Forum

• A market category became a diplomatic platform: Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill coined “BRIC” in 2001 for Brazil, Russia, India and China as large emerging economies with long-term growth potential. The governments converted that external label into political coordination in 2006 and held their first leaders’ summit at Yekaterinburg in 2009.
• South Africa widened the political meaning: South Africa was invited to join in 2010 and first participated in a summit in 2011, turning BRIC into BRICS. Its inclusion gave the forum a stronger African and Global South identity even though South Africa’s economy was smaller than those of several non-members.
• The original purpose was reformist: The founding members sought greater influence in the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other institutions whose voting power and leadership practices reflected an earlier distribution of power. They did not begin with a treaty to dismantle the existing order; they used coordination to demand more representative multilateralism.
• India supplied important institution-building ideas: The 2012 New Delhi Summit, organised around “Global Stability, Security and Prosperity”, advanced the proposal that became the New Development Bank and helped prepare the ground for the Contingent Reserve Arrangement. India also pushed cooperation on counter-terrorism, health, agriculture, science and people-to-people exchanges.
• The agenda became much broader: BRICS now works through three established pillars: political and security cooperation; economic and financial cooperation; and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Hundreds of meetings connect ministries, central banks, research bodies, business councils, universities and civil-society platforms, but the forum still has no founding charter or permanent secretariat comparable to a treaty organisation.

Expansion And Institutional Identity

• Expansion changed the scale: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates entered as full members in January 2024, while Indonesia joined in January 2025. The eleven members now span Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eurasia and West Asia and include major energy producers, consumers, markets and mineral holders.
• A partner category created a wider ring: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam entered the partner-country framework during 2025. Partners receive structured access to selected BRICS engagements, but they are not full members and do not share the same decision-making status.
• Representation improved, but cohesion became harder: The expanded forum carries more demographic and regional legitimacy. It also contains sharper differences over the Russia–Ukraine war, Iran–Israel and Gulf rivalries, relations with the United States, the place of political Islam, trade policy and the appropriate pace of financial decoupling from the West.
• Bilateral disputes can spill into the forum: India and China have an unresolved boundary dispute; Iran and the UAE differ over islands in the Gulf; Saudi Arabia and Iran have only recently restored ties; and several members compete in energy and regional politics. BRICS can keep channels open, but the experience of other regional groupings shows that unresolved bilateral conflict can obstruct collective action.
• Consensus is a safeguard, not a procedural inconvenience: BRICS decisions have traditionally required consensus. For India and other members wary of major-power domination, this protects sovereign equality. A disputed chair’s statement on COVID-19 under Russia in 2020 and the failure of foreign ministers to agree on a joint statement in May 2026 illustrate how bypassed or absent consensus weakens credibility.
• The central identity dispute remains unresolved: China and Russia often present BRICS as a counterweight to Western power. India, Brazil, South Africa and several newer members generally seek more policy space and institutional reform without choosing a permanent anti-West alignment. India’s preferred formula is a “non-West” platform that can cooperate with the West, not an anti-West alliance.

Global South And Reformed Multilateralism

• BRICS expresses a real representation deficit: Many developing countries object to limited voice in the IMF and World Bank, slow reform of the UN Security Council, unequal access to technology and finance, and rules often written without their participation. BRICS aggregates these concerns and gives large developing states bargaining power that they would not have separately.
• Reform does not necessarily mean replacement: The 2026 New Delhi Declaration called for implementation of the IMF’s 16th General Review of Quotas, meaningful quota realignment under the 17th review, a World Bank shareholding realignment and WTO reform. This is consistent with the “reformed multilateralism” approach India advanced in 2018 and embedded in BRICS language in 2019: change representation, voting shares and rule-making processes while retaining universal institutions.
• Selective reform by powerful members creates distrust: China supports a larger role for developing countries in general terms but has not backed permanent UN Security Council membership for India, Brazil and South Africa. This gap between systemic reform rhetoric and selective national interest limits solidarity within BRICS.
• The forum can organise middle-power agency: India’s strongest conception of BRICS is a coalition in which large non-Western states cooperate without surrendering independent foreign policies. The model is imperfect because China is a near-peer competitor of the United States, Russia is a major military power, and several important middle powers remain outside the grouping. Even so, it can protect space for multi-alignment.
• BRICS complements rather than duplicates the G20: The G20 remains the wider forum for global macroeconomic coordination because it includes advanced economies, major emerging economies, the European Union and the African Union. BRICS allows developing members to coordinate interests before negotiating in forums where Western states retain greater institutional influence.
• Dialogue has value even when agreement is narrow: Meetings among India, China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE preserve direct communication during wars, sanctions and strategic rivalry. The benefit is not automatic consensus; it is the ability to manage disagreement, identify limited common ground and reduce the risk that all relations become hostage to one dispute.

India China Dynamics Within BRICS

• Power within BRICS is highly unequal: China’s economy, trade networks, manufacturing capacity, foreign-exchange resources and technological reach exceed those of every other member. It can therefore shape expansion, agenda-setting and the economic infrastructure of cooperation even when formal decisions remain consensual.
• India and China interpret multipolarity differently: India favours several independent centres of power. China often promotes institutions and standards that can place it at the centre of an alternative network, including the Belt and Road Initiative, the Digital Silk Road, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and proposals in artificial intelligence, telecommunications, satellite navigation and digital payments.
• The border dispute limits political trust: Confrontations at Depsang in 2013, Chumar in 2014, Doklam in 2017 and eastern Ladakh in 2020 altered Indian perceptions of China. The 2020 clash caused the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers. Disengagement arrangements in 2024 and gradual restoration of travel links reduced immediate friction, but the boundary question, trade deficit and Indian concerns over China–Pakistan coordination during Operation Sindoor continue to constrain normalisation.
• Economic interdependence creates leverage and vulnerability: Indian industry depends on Chinese inputs in electronics, solar equipment, pharmaceuticals and other supply chains, while Indian firms face market-access concerns in China. BRICS cooperation may facilitate trade, but it cannot substitute for India’s domestic manufacturing, technology and supply-chain diversification policies.
• Shared pressure can produce tactical convergence: Tariff threats, sanctions, energy shocks and perceived double standards in the use of force give India and China some common positions on sovereignty and developing-country interests. These convergences are issue-specific. They do not erase strategic competition or establish a durable alliance.
• A larger BRICS can either dilute or magnify Chinese influence: More members may create additional coalitions and reduce the weight of any single country. The opposite outcome is also possible if smaller members depend on Chinese trade, investment or finance and if common payment arrangements use Chinese infrastructure by default.
• India’s role is to preserve pluralism inside the forum: Close engagement with Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, the UAE and other members can prevent binary Russia–China versus West framing. India must also retain strong partnerships with the United States, Europe, Japan and other Indo-Pacific partners for capital, technology and security.

The Economic Case For India

• BRICS expands economic options: South–South trade, development finance, energy arrangements and access to critical minerals can reduce excessive dependence on a few markets or financial channels. The grouping’s economic weight has grown markedly since the 1990s, although its members differ greatly in income, productivity and financial depth.
• Diversification is not substitution: The United States and European Union remain crucial markets for Indian goods and services and major sources of investment, technology and high-productivity employment. BRICS can lower concentration risk over time, but it cannot replace India’s economic integration with advanced economies at present.
• Energy security strengthens the case for multiple relationships: India imports about 88% of its crude-oil requirement, and crude constitutes roughly one-fifth of its total imports. Russian supplies, Gulf partnerships and cooperation with other producers provide price and source diversification, while conflict in West Asia still transmits inflation and balance-of-payments risks through dollar-priced energy markets.
• Critical minerals add a strategic dimension: Several BRICS members possess oil, gas, lithium, rare earths and other minerals needed for the energy and digital transitions. Long-term offtake, processing partnerships and transparent supply-chain agreements can support India, provided new dependencies do not merely replace old ones.
• Financial coercion is a practical concern: Exclusion of Iranian and Russian institutions from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, secondary sanctions and warnings that delayed Indian engagement at Chabahar show how financial networks can enforce foreign policy. A 2025 study associated with former Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel counted 1,325 sanctions since 1949, including 486 imposed by the United States, which maintained more than 30 sanctions programmes; it described BRICS and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as risk-mitigation options.
• Trade policy is also becoming coercive: Large economies increasingly use tariffs, industrial subsidies, export controls and carbon standards to secure strategic industries. BRICS members have criticised the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism because it can transfer part of the cost of climate adjustment to developing exporters; a 2021 UNCTAD estimate found that the mechanism then envisaged would cut global emissions by only about 0.1% while reducing developing-country exports in covered sectors.
• Technology rules affect development space: India and South Africa’s October 2020 proposal for a broad temporary waiver of obligations under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights exposed the difficulty of obtaining timely access to vaccines, treatments and health technologies during a crisis. The eventual narrower outcome strengthened the argument for developing-country coordination on intellectual property, research and production capacity.
• The economic test is delivery: India should judge BRICS initiatives by lower transaction costs, additional finance, improved market access, resilient supply chains and usable technology partnerships. Communiqués that do not alter these outcomes have limited economic value, regardless of the grouping’s aggregate size.

Development Finance Promise And Limits

The New Development Bank

• A significant institutional achievement: The New Development Bank was created by treaty in 2014 and began operations in 2015 to mobilise resources for infrastructure and sustainable development in emerging markets and developing countries. Its permanent headquarters is in Shanghai, and its project portfolio covers clean energy, transport, water, digital infrastructure, environmental protection and social infrastructure.
• Its design challenged some established practices: The five founders began with equal subscribed capital and equal voting shares, unlike institutions where voting power is dominated by advanced economies. The bank also promised quicker procedures, borrowing and lending in local currencies, and finance without the broad macroeconomic policy conditions associated with some IMF and World Bank programmes.
• Its reach has widened beyond BRICS: Bangladesh, the UAE, Egypt, Algeria and Uzbekistan have joined the five founders. NDB membership is legally separate from BRICS membership: some BRICS members have not joined the bank, while some NDB members are not full BRICS members.
• Scale remains modest: By the end of 2024 the bank had approved about $39 billion in projects, while the World Bank Group commits amounts of roughly $100 billion in a typical recent financial year. The NDB therefore supplements established development banks; it does not yet rival them in scale, knowledge capacity or crisis reach.
• Dollar dependence has persisted: Around half of the bank’s outstanding bonds were denominated in US dollars in the assessment reflected in the 2026 debate, with the renminbi accounting for most of the remainder and the South African rand about 1%. Local-currency financing was about 22% in mid-2025 against a portfolio target of 30% by the end of 2026.
• Market discipline limits autonomy: The NDB seeks ratings from major Western credit-rating agencies and raises funds in international markets. It froze new transactions in Russia in March 2022 to protect financial soundness and market access. The episode showed that a development bank can have non-Western ownership while remaining embedded in dollar funding, sanctions compliance and global credit markets.
• Governance choices also invite scrutiny: Russia gave up the rotating presidency after 2022, and Dilma Rousseff’s tenure was extended to 2030. These decisions helped institutional continuity but also raised questions about whether informal geopolitical bargains can displace the original rotational expectations.
• The balanced assessment: The bank finances real infrastructure and gives borrowers another lender. Yet co-financing with the World Bank and reliance on existing capital markets make it a complementary institution. Its transformative potential depends on greater capital, a stronger project pipeline, transparent safeguards and prudent expansion of local-currency lending.

The Contingent Reserve Arrangement

• Purpose and design: The CRA is a $100 billion pool intended to provide liquidity support during actual or potential short-term balance-of-payments pressure. Contributions are commitments by central banks rather than a permanently paid-in fund.
• Dependence on the IMF remains: A member can draw only 30% of its maximum access without an IMF-supported programme; the remainder is linked to IMF conditionality. The CRA has no permanent staff, independent surveillance unit or research capacity comparable to the IMF.
• Its credibility remains untested: The arrangement has never been activated. It is therefore a useful financial backstop on paper, but not yet proof that BRICS can provide autonomous crisis management.

Dollar Dependence And Payment Reform

Why Cross Border Payments Are Costly

• Correspondent banking lengthens the chain: A payment between two developing economies often passes through correspondent banks in New York or London. If the two domestic currencies lack a direct market, each side may convert through the US dollar as the vehicle currency, adding fees, foreign-exchange spreads and settlement risk.
• SWIFT carries messages rather than money: The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a Belgium-based cooperative that provides secure financial messaging to more than 11,000 institutions across over 200 countries and territories. Settlement occurs through banks and payment systems; describing SWIFT itself as the global payments ledger is inaccurate.
• Costs are uneven: A 2019 BRICS survey cited costs of about 2.5% for some Brazilian transactions and 8.5% in parts of Africa, with some transfers reaching 20%. SWIFT’s global payments innovation service has improved tracking and speed, but the number of correspondent-banking relationships fell by roughly one-fifth between 2011 and 2018, concentrating access.
• Monetary spillovers affect developing economies: When the US Federal Reserve tightens policy, capital can leave emerging markets, local currencies can weaken and dollar debt becomes harder to service. Dollar-centred finance therefore transmits policy choices made for US conditions to economies with different needs.

Local Currency Settlement

• The narrow objective is practical: Invoicing and settling some trade in national currencies can reduce double conversion, shorten payment chains and lower demand for transaction balances in dollars. India has framed its proposals around trade and tourism costs rather than a political campaign to abolish the dollar.
• Balanced trade matters: A partner that persistently exports more than it imports accumulates the buyer’s currency. The rupee–rouble mechanism encountered this problem because Russia acquired rupees that were difficult to invest or spend at scale; third currencies such as the renminbi and dirham were then used in some transactions.
• China is structurally better placed: China runs merchandise surpluses with many BRICS members and possesses the grouping’s deepest non-dollar trade and financial networks. Russia and China reportedly settle almost all bilateral trade in their national currencies, and Russia has become a major holder of renminbi reserves.
• India faces a specific risk: In 2025–26 India recorded trade deficits with seven BRICS partners and surpluses only with Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran; the cumulative deficit was about $226 billion and was driven chiefly by China. Wider local-currency settlement could therefore leave India holding or owing renminbi claims rather than creating symmetric use of the rupee.

A Common Currency

• No BRICS common currency exists: The grouping has not adopted a common currency, a shared central bank or a timetable for monetary union. Leaders and commentators have floated ideas ranging from a unit of account to a commodity-backed currency, but political statements and media speculation are not institutional decisions.
• A circulating currency would require sovereignty pooling: A euro-like arrangement needs a supranational central bank, shared monetary rules, fiscal coordination and a lender of last resort. BRICS economies have different inflation records, exchange-rate regimes, capital controls and strategic interests, making such a union improbable.
• A basket unit has a different problem: A reserve asset modelled on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights would still need liquid, credible and widely accessible assets behind each component. China supplies the largest pool among BRICS, so its currency would probably receive a high weight and the arrangement could become a route to renminbi internationalisation.
• Official language remains cautious: Neither the 2025 Rio Declaration nor the 2026 New Delhi Declaration adopted a common-currency project. The New Delhi text confined itself to payment interoperability and greater use of local currencies while recognising national priorities and rejecting a one-size-fits-all model. India has opposed a common currency, while China has pursued gradual international use of the renminbi.
• Tariff threats politicised the debate: Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs in November 2024 if BRICS members moved away from the dollar and later proposed an additional 10% tariff on countries aligned with what he called “anti-American” BRICS policies in July 2025. The threatened measures had not been implemented in the episodes under discussion, but they demonstrated how payment reform itself could attract coercive pressure.

Payment Systems And Digital Currencies

• Bilateral links offer a working model: India’s Unified Payments Interface connection with Singapore’s PayNow shows how two retail systems can interoperate. A web of separate bilateral links, however, becomes expensive to govern as the number of countries grows.
• A shared hub can improve scalability: Project Nexus, developed through the Bank for International Settlements with participating central banks including the Reserve Bank of India, is designed to connect instant-payment systems through common rules and interfaces, with implementation then scheduled for 2027. It is not a BRICS project, but it illustrates the technical model available for multilateral retail payments.
• Wholesale central bank digital currencies can reduce settlement risk: A multi-CBDC platform can exchange tokenised central-bank money through payment-versus-payment, so both legs settle together. This can reduce delays and the capital that banks hold against failed or mismatched settlement.
• The mBridge experience also gives a warning: After the BIS withdrew from Project mBridge in October 2024, the digital yuan accounted for more than 95% of reported settlement volume on the platform. A BRICS network built around one country’s currency and infrastructure could replace dollar dependence with technological and monetary dependence on China.
• BRICS work remains exploratory: The 2026 New Delhi Declaration acknowledged studies by the BRICS Payment Task Force on interoperable payment and messaging channels and discussions on trade and investment in local currencies. It directed further technical work but did not establish a common currency, unified payment network or binding settlement architecture; the BRICS Clear concept and CBDC links therefore remain proposals rather than operational BRICS-wide systems.
• Payment engineering cannot remove macroeconomic asymmetry: Faster messaging and settlement do not create balanced trade, convertible currencies, deep bond markets or trust in legal institutions. Any system that converts surplus local currencies back into dollars through intermediaries recreates part of the cost it was designed to avoid.

India’s 2026 Chairship And The New Delhi Declaration

• A four-part organising idea became the summit framework: The 18th Summit was held in New Delhi on 12–13 September 2026 under “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, often shortened to RICS. The adopted declaration retained India’s people-centred, practical and development-oriented emphasis while consolidating existing work rather than creating a supranational structure.
• Resilience received practical expression: The final outcomes backed logistics and value-chain cooperation, an integrated early-warning approach for infectious diseases, disaster-risk data guidelines, a Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage, and networks in agro-ecology and digital agriculture. Most mechanisms remain voluntary and capacity-building oriented.
• Innovation advanced through networks and repositories: Leaders welcomed the BRICS Incubator Network, acknowledged a voluntary Science and Research Repository, noted a proposed digital-public-infrastructure repository and pilot projects, and committed to implement the BRICS Leaders’ Statement on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence. A BRICS Startup Innovation Fund remained a proposal rather than an established institution.
• Social cooperation gained identifiable mechanisms: The declaration endorsed the BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyle and its 2026–29 roadmap, supported mental-health training and a network of Centres of Excellence coordinated by NIMHANS, and welcomed work on digital health, women’s digital capacity, skilling and an expert group on traditional, complementary and integrative medicine.
• Sustainability remained development-sensitive: The declaration called for a just, orderly, equitable and inclusive energy transition, technological neutrality and application of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. It also supported community-based adaptation, resilient cities, stable energy markets and critical-mineral cooperation while opposing protectionist carbon-border measures.
• Trade facilitation produced incremental outcomes: Leaders backed the BRICS Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026–30, the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030, deeper standards cooperation and progress towards an agreement on customs cooperation and mutual administrative assistance. These technical mechanisms offer more measurable value than aggregate trade claims alone.
• India cleared the immediate consensus test: The chairship convened more than 400 meetings and engagements in 30 Indian cities and secured adoption of the 140-paragraph New Delhi Declaration despite divisions over wars, sanctions and the role of the West. Consensus demonstrated diplomatic utility, but implementation remains the more demanding test.
• Reformed multilateralism acquired specific demands: The declaration supported comprehensive UN reform, recognised African aspirations under the Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration, and recorded China and Russia’s support for Brazil and India to play a greater role in the UN, including the Security Council. It did not amount to explicit endorsement of permanent seats.
• Counter-terrorism language was unusually direct: BRICS condemned the 22 April 2025 terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed, and called for action against cross-border movement of terrorists, financing, safe havens and all UN-designated terrorists and entities. It also sought early finalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
• West Asia showed both the value and limits of consensus: The declaration called for maximum restraint, protection of civilians and peaceful nuclear facilities, uninterrupted trade and energy flows, humanitarian access in Gaza and a two-state solution. Its detailed West Asia language, alongside omission of the Ukraine war, reflected the selectivity required to preserve agreement among members with conflicting alignments.
• Economic resistance stopped short of institutional rupture: Members opposed WTO-inconsistent tariffs and non-tariff measures, non-UN Security Council-authorised sanctions and protectionist carbon-border adjustments. Yet payment reform remained voluntary and exploratory, showing that shared resistance to economic coercion has not produced a monetary union or unified financial architecture.
• Institutional continuity received modest support: Leaders welcomed work on a BRICS Online Archival Database and an exercise to review memoranda of understanding, while assigning the 2027 chairship and 19th Summit to China. These steps may improve continuity, but they do not remove the forum’s dependence on annual chairships and national implementation.

Institutional Constraints And Internal Contradictions

• Aggregate size can mislead: BRICS members collectively account for a large share of global population, output and trade, but aggregate figures do not establish policy unity. China contributes a disproportionate share of economic weight, while members have different development levels, export structures and financial systems.
• The forum lacks enforcement capacity: BRICS relies on annual chairships, ministerial tracks, working groups and political declarations. This flexibility lowers sovereignty costs, but weak follow-up, changing national priorities and the absence of a permanent secretariat can leave initiatives under-implemented.
• Expansion raises transaction costs: More members give BRICS legitimacy and resources, but make consensus slower and declarations more general. A forum that admits states with direct disputes must strengthen consultation and conflict-management practices if it wants expansion to increase influence rather than paralysis.
• Russia’s isolation changes the internal balance: Sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine have made Russia the strongest advocate of alternative payments and reduced reliance on Western finance. Other members share concerns about coercion but do not wish to inherit Russia’s sanctions exposure or subordinate their economic interests to Moscow’s confrontation with the West.
• China’s capacity exceeds collective safeguards: China can supply trade, finance, technology and infrastructure at a scale no other member can match. Without transparent procurement, open technical standards and diversified settlement assets, ostensibly multilateral projects may acquire a Chinese centre of gravity.
• The West is neither a single adversary nor dispensable: BRICS criticism often targets US sanctions, IMF governance, European carbon rules or export controls. Members nevertheless need Western capital, markets, universities, technologies and security relationships. A strategy built on comprehensive separation would impose high costs on India and many newer members.
• Development priorities compete with geopolitics: Health, agriculture, climate adaptation, disaster management and small-business cooperation enjoy broader agreement than wars or great-power rivalry. BRICS gains durable legitimacy when it solves these development problems; geopolitical posturing without practical value consumes consensus and administrative attention.

India’s Policy Priorities

• Defend consensus and sovereign equality: India should resist outcomes presented as collective positions when members have not agreed. Consensus is the institutional barrier against domination and the basis on which a diverse forum can remain politically useful.
• Reassert reformed multilateralism: India should link BRICS positions to specific reforms of the UN, IMF, World Bank and WTO, including greater voting voice, transparent leadership selection and stronger representation of developing countries. Reform proposals are more credible when they support universal institutions rather than create exclusive rival blocs.
• Keep BRICS non-West rather than anti-West: India can oppose coercive tariffs, sanctions and unequal governance while maintaining partnerships with the United States and Europe. This preserves strategic autonomy and prevents BRICS participation from narrowing India’s access to capital, technology and security cooperation.
• Build coalitions within the expanded group: Regular coordination with Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, the UAE and other independently minded members can widen the space between a China–Russia agenda and Western alignment. Issue-based coalitions are more realistic than a single BRICS geopolitical position.
• Prioritise measurable cooperation: India should attach timelines, responsible institutions and review mechanisms to supply-chain, customs, standards, health, agriculture, research and digital-public-infrastructure initiatives. A smaller set of completed projects would do more for BRICS credibility than an expanding catalogue of announcements.
• Strengthen the NDB rather than overstate it: India should support a larger and diversified capital base, more rupee bonds, local-currency project finance, transparent safeguards and a stronger India Regional Office at GIFT City. Financial prudence remains essential because low borrowing costs are part of the bank’s development value.
• Design payment links with safeguards: Interoperability should be voluntary, technically neutral and compliant with financial-integrity standards. India should seek multi-currency settlement, open interfaces, reciprocal access and governance rules that prevent the renminbi or any single national platform from becoming the default hub.
• Address trade imbalances before promoting currencies: Greater market access for Indian goods and services, mechanisms to invest rupee balances, deeper domestic bond markets and more balanced intra-BRICS trade are prerequisites for durable local-currency settlement. Technology alone cannot make a currency internationally attractive.
• Reduce economic vulnerabilities at home: Competitive manufacturing, secure telecom and digital infrastructure, energy diversification, critical-mineral partnerships and domestic research capacity give India bargaining power inside BRICS. External diversification works only when it is backed by internal capability.
• Use leaders’ meetings to manage difficult relations: BRICS provides recurring opportunities for India to speak directly with China, Russia and West Asian powers without accepting their positions. Keeping dialogue alive is a practical gain when bilateral trust is low and crises are interconnected.

Conclusion

The 2026 New Delhi Summit confirmed that BRICS is neither an emerging world government nor an empty diplomatic ritual. India secured a consensus declaration that condemned the Jammu and Kashmir terrorist attack, renewed demands for institutional reform and advanced practical cooperation in health, supply chains, digital infrastructure, research and payments.

The same declaration exposed the forum’s limits: conflict language remained selective, payment reform stayed exploratory and implementation still depends on national institutions. Expansion has increased representative weight while making common positions harder to achieve. BRICS will serve India best when it converts flexible coalitions into measurable public goods, preserves sovereign equality against domination by any one member and enlarges strategic choice without demanding strategic alignment.