OPINION | BRICS Summit in Delhi: India’s high-wire act

The flags have come down at Bharat Mandapam in Delhi, but the real test of India’s BRICS presidency begins now.

The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi produced a fundamental paradox. On one side, the expanded grouping has grown far more assertive in challenging the US-led international order—criticising unilateral tariffs and sanctions, demanding structural representation for the Global South, and pushing for a multipolar economic architecture. On the other, India successfully prevented BRICS from turning into an explicitly anti-American or anti-Western alliance.

That distinction is critical.

For India, BRICS is neither an alliance nor a substitute for its vital relationships with the United States and Europe. It is a pragmatic platform through which New Delhi can reshape global governance while preserving maximum strategic freedom of action. The New Delhi Summit demonstrated both the immense possibilities and the sharp risks of that balancing act.

A divided BRICS finds common ground

The Summit’s initial achievement was perhaps its hardest fought: genuine consensus.

Today’s expanded BRICS is vastly more heterogeneous than the original four-nation bloc. Alongside India, China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa sit Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the UAE, alongside an expanding network of partner states. Their strategic orientations and national interests are anything but aligned.

Iran remains locked in sharp confrontation with the United States and Israel. The UAE maintains deep economic and security ties with the West. India continues to build a comprehensive strategic partnership with Washington. China stands as America’s primary geopolitical rival, while Russia operates under an unprecedented Western sanctions regime.

Against this fragmented backdrop, the unanimous New Delhi Declaration was a victory for Indian diplomatic manoeuvring. The text called for restraint and diplomacy in West Asia, condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure, opposed unilateral economic coercion, reaffirmed multilateralism, and called for urgent reform of global institutions.

More significantly, India bridged profound regional divides, bringing Iran and the UAE into a shared position on regional stability. The side-line meeting between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the UAE leadership demonstrated New Delhi’s unique convening power. This is precisely where India adds distinct value: not by turning BRICS into an ideological combatant, but by preserving a table where geopolitical adversaries can still talk.

What has concretely been achieved?

It is easy to dismiss summit outcome documents as rhetorical boilerplate. Doing so here would miss substantive progress. The New Delhi Declaration moved beyond high-altitude posturing to deliver several concrete initiatives:

Pragmatic financial reform: BRICS bypassed the economic fantasy of a single shared currency in favour of immediate, practical mechanics: interoperable national payment systems, streamlined cross-border settlements, and local-currency trade. The BRICS Payment Task Force will drive this integration, while the New Development Bank (NDB) expands local-currency loans.

Development & investment frameworks: India elevated development finance, initiating structural work on a proposed New Investment Platform to mobilise capital across emerging markets via the NDB.

Technology & digital infrastructure: Artificial intelligence and digital public infrastructure (DPI) emerged as core cooperation pillars. The declaration endorsed inclusive, safe AI systems tailored to the Global South, backed by Indian commitments to share industrial and digital framework architecture.

Security & counter-terrorism: India secured key language on regional security. The declaration explicitly condemned the Pahalgam terrorist attack, demanding zero tolerance for terrorism, full accountability for perpetrators, and the denial of safe havens.

The Summit did not dismantle the global order, but it equipped developing nations with pragmatic mechanisms to navigate and reshape it.

Is BRICS turning anti-Western?

Here lies India’s core strategic dilemma.

The New Delhi Declaration reflects widespread frustration across the developing world with an international financial system historically dominated by Western institutions. Unilateral sanctions, tariff barriers, and weaponised supply chains have hit developing economies hardest.

Yet India’s strategic objectives diverge sharply from those of several key BRICS peers:

Russia views the bloc primarily as an instrument to erode Western sanctions.

Iran seeks relief from isolation and seeks a fragmented order less capable of enforcing US pressure. China aims to curb American strategic primacy and construct a Sino-centric multipolar system.

India seeks something fundamentally different: strategic autonomy, not strategic antagonism.

New Delhi has no interest in replacing one hegemonic system with another, nor will it allow BRICS to function as NATO in reverse. Fortunately, the bloc's internal diversity serves as a natural barrier to ideological capture. Economies like Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, the UAE, and India have no desire to become strategic appendages of either Washington or Beijing. BRICS must remain an assertion of Global South agency rather than an anti-Western bloc.

Navigating Washington’s anxiety

Should India worry about reactions in Washington? Yes—but for the right reasons.

India must avoid giving Washington the impression that New Delhi has thrown its weight behind a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis—that participating in BRICS signals strategic realignments.

India’s partnership with the US remains indispensable. The two nations share fundamental interests in Indo-Pacific security, technology transfer, critical minerals, defence production, and balancing Chinese power.

Similarly, Europe remains crucial for capital investment, high-tech manufacturing, trade, and education.

At the same time, India cannot cut ties with Russia, given historical dependencies in defence, energy, and Eurasian logistics. Nor can it simply ignore China, a neighbour with whom it shares a long, contested border and massive trade flows.

The solution cannot be joining an exclusive camp. It must be expanding India's strategic room for manoeuvre. Washington must understand that an autonomous India is not an anti-American India. Indeed, an India capable of engaging Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran simultaneously is far more valuable to global stability than an India confined to a rigid alliance structure.

The China factor

The most formidable long-term challenge within BRICS remains Beijing. India has been experiencing an ‘on-off’ relationship with China on account of the latter’s ‘salami-slicing’ inclinations along their disputed borders. Clearly, the trust deficit has widened after the PLA intrusions of 2020 – which are yet to be satisfactorily resolved. To that extent, it is only critical economic dependencies that have resulted in recent thaws in the post-Galwan era.

Also, China possesses the economic weight, financial capacity, and diplomatic ambition to mould the BRICS to its own strategic ends. President Xi Jinping’s call at the Summit for a "Greater BRICS" with integrated trade, financial networks, and political coordination reflects Beijing’s drive for institutional leadership.

But India realises that its response cannot simply be avoidance or disruption; it must be issue-based coalition building. By aligning systematically with Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Gulf states on shared economic priorities, India can preserve the bloc's multipolar nature. The strategic diversity of BRICS is India’s greatest asset in preventing Chinese dominance.

From balancing to multi-alignment

India’s foreign policy has outgrown legacy concepts of non-alignment and passive strategic defence. India’s multi-layered interests cannot be contained within a single geopolitical umbrella.

New Delhi now practices active multi-alignment.

India can anchor the Quad while shaping BRICS, engage the SCO, lead in the G20, and participate in Indo-Pacific security architectures. It can expand defence integration with Washington while securing energy imports from Moscow, compete with Beijing while maintaining open diplomatic channels, and deepen ties with Israel and the Gulf states while engaging Tehran.

This is not diplomatic inconsistency; it is the practical reality of an increasingly fragmented, multipolar world.

India’s strategic roadmap

To turn the New Delhi Summit into a lasting diplomatic gain, India should follow six clear priorities:

Keep BRICS economic and developmental: Consistently resist efforts to transform the grouping into a security alliance or an anti-Western political front.

Prioritise practical deliverables: Direct focus toward tangible outcomes—interoperable payments, critical minerals, supply chain resilience, AI standards, and energy security.

Advance global south governance: Push for structural reforms within the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and UN, strengthening global institutions rather than tearing them down.

Leverage regional diplomacy: Use India’s neutral standing to mediate conflict and facilitate dialogue in volatile regions like Ukraine and West Asia.

Reinforce ties with the West: Maintain transparent communications with Washington and European capitals, reassuring partners while firmly asserting strategic autonomy.

Build internal BRICS coalitions: Work with non-aligned members to balance Beijing's structural weight and maintain internal pluralism.

Ultimately, effective diplomacy rests on national capability. Economic growth, industrial capacity, technological innovation, and military strength will determine the true extent of India’s strategic autonomy.

Conclusion: The strategic game plan

The New Delhi Summit showed that India can sit at the table with China, Russia, and Iran without becoming their ally; partner with the US and Europe without becoming a subordinate; and bring regional rivals together under one roof. It has also enabled India to regain some of its standing in the Global South.

That balance is India’s strategic sweet spot.

The danger lies not in BRICS itself, but in two potential missteps: allowing the bloc to turn into an anti-Western front, or bowing to Western pressure to abandon a forum that gives India unmatched reach across the Global South.

India’s roadmap is straightforward: use BRICS without being used by it; deepen Western ties without creating dependencies; keep diplomatic channels clear with China while protecting its interests; spread positive influence in the Global South;  and maintain Russia as a key partner without becoming hostage to its geopolitical conflicts.

India’s goal is not to choose between the West and the rest—it is to remain indispensable to both. 

(Lt Gen Philip Campose (Retired) is a former Vice Chief of the Indian Army. He has authored a book titled ‘A National Security Strategy for India: The Way Forward’)

(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.)