Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be walking with a spring in his step. BRICS 2026 New Delhi will have a lot of things to be remembered by. A notable event of the summit was India’s mediating role in getting warring parties—the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran—to agree to a joint statement. A lot of credit for that goes to India, as meetings to get the two nations to agree on a consensus went on until 4 in the morning on September 12.
While there was not much remarkable progress for BRICS as a grouping, the New Delhi Declaration may be a landmark summit outcome that announces to the world that the grouping of emerging economies is a power to be reckoned with. After all, 40 per cent of the world’s GDP originates in the 11 BRICS countries, where more than half of humanity lives—and with a growth rate double that of the global average.
Despite its claims to be an overarching business and economic forum, BRICS took an important step in slamming unilateralism. It condemned coercive measures and unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures. No prizes for guessing the target here—there will be a lot of squirming in Washington, D.C. over this.
While the perceived de-dollarisation move was refuted, there is no doubt that the journey to look beyond the US dollar is set to continue.
For India, the gains were substantial. There was all-round condemnation of the Pahalgam attack of April 22, 2025. Cross-border terrorism was called out.
Significantly, there was complete support, including China’s, for permanent membership for India in the United Nations Security Council. It may seem like just a matter of time now.
However, the most notable achievement for India was the breaking of the ice with China. A closer relationship between New Delhi and Beijing is the stuff of nightmares for the US-led West. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s very large delegation, mostly comprising business representatives, indicates that a prosperous and mutually beneficial bilateral era between the two Asian giants may indeed be in the offing.
In a nutshell, BRICS 2026 and the New Delhi Declaration were everything they should have been.
