From Foreign Policy · Michael Kugelman · · 3m
What India Gets Out of BRICS
New Delhi is repaving roads and rehearsing motorcades for a summit it needs more than it lets on.
In brief
New Delhi is repaving roads and rehearsing motorcades for a summit it needs more than it lets on. BRICS is limited, but for India it is still the cheapest way to court the global south, hedge against Washington, and prove it can convene the world. Originally reported by Foreign Policy.
New Delhi scrubs up
Ahead of the Sept. 12-13 leaders' summit, commandos are running security drills, police are rehearsing motorcades, and the city is fixing roads and planting flower beds.
Why the group matters
BRICS started as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, built to offer alternatives to Western economic institutions. India has treated it as a core institution for years.
Two tables at once
India sits inside a bloc designed to counterweight the West while keeping close ties to the West. Holding both seats is exactly how it protects its strategic autonomy.
The goals already match
Engagement with the global south, United Nations reform, multilateralism. BRICS priorities line up with what India was pushing anyway.
A friendlier roster
The 2024 expansion brought in Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the UAE, all close Indian partners. Iran is the only new member that isn't.
China thaw helps
India's slow, modest rapprochement with Beijing lowers the friction inside the room. A frozen relationship would make consensus much harder to reach.
A stage for convening power
Hosting lets the world's fastest-growing major economy show it can gather leaders and set an agenda. That is the real product on offer this weekend.
Pakistan stole some shine
Islamabad has been upstaging India lately: lead mediator in the Iran war, growing arms sales, new defense pacts, and rising pull in the Middle East.
Courting the global south
With discontent rising over the Western-led economic order, the summit gives India room to press its claim to lead the global south, an ambition rooted in its Non-Aligned Movement past.
Where India falls short
Its inroads in Latin America and Africa stay thin, and China is already the big investor in both while making the same pitch for global south leadership.
Two handshakes to watch
Modi gets bilateral time with the leaders of Brazil and Ethiopia, the newest member, aimed squarely at the regions where India is weakest.
A pitch aimed at Trump
India wants to argue for freer markets, freer trade and more multilateralism against the backdrop of high U.S. tariffs in Trump's second term.
Economic resilience, on cue
Those tariffs likely shaped one of the summit themes. It should land well with every member, and India wants consensus behind a strong joint statement.
Talk shop or counterweight
Every summit brings the same two takes: BRICS is an irrelevant talking club, or it is the bloc that breaks Western dominance. Neither holds up.
It has built things
The group launched real initiatives, its own development bank among them. Dismissing it as pure theater ignores the institutions it stood up.
And it is boxed in
Bad blood between some new members, heavy dependence on the U.S. dollar, and no clear shared objective all cap how far BRICS can push against the West.
Warts and all
BRICS is a serious grouping with serious limits. For India the math still works: it is a critical vehicle for advancing core foreign-policy interests.
“BRICS, warts and all, is a critical vehicle to advance its core foreign-policy interests.”
What matters most
BRICS is limited, but for India it is still the cheapest way to court the global south, hedge against Washington, and prove it can convene the world.
