When BRICS leaders gather in New Delhi on September 12–13, India’s challenge will go beyond hosting another summit. Expansion has brought greater weight, but also sharper contradictions. New Delhi must show that countries with divergent interests can cooperate without surrendering their freedom of choice. Its chairship will matter most if it makes diversity manageable and delivers practical results.
India’s guiding principle is strategic autonomy. BRICS should broaden its diplomatic and economic options, strengthen the voice of developing countries, and support reform of international institutions. It should neither become an anti-Western coalition nor replace one hierarchy with another. That requires India to align its development agenda with a workable political understanding among members.
The difficulty is already apparent. The May foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi concluded with a Chair’s Statement rather than a conventional joint statement, amid divisions over West Asia. Iran and the UAE now belong to the same grouping despite profound security differences. Their disagreement is testing the prospects for consensus in Delhi. Enlargement has brought regional rivalries directly into BRICS diplomacy.
Saudi Arabia adds another layer of complexity. Although official BRICS listings include the kingdom, Riyadh has remained cautious about accepting full membership while participating in the grouping’s activities. India should recognise this ambiguity rather than treat an expanded membership list as evidence of strategic cohesion. Participation does not necessarily imply alignment.
The Gulf states reflect a broader international trend. The UAE and Saudi Arabia seek deeper economic engagement with China, maintain key Western security relationships and cultivate partnerships with India. Their preference is for a wider range of choices. India understands this instinct: it participates in the Quad, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, maintains ties with Russia, strengthens partnerships with the West and manages competition with China.
For New Delhi, however, Gulf security is more than a mere illustration of multipolarity. India–GCC trade stood at approximately $195 billion in 2025–26, and nearly ten million Indians live in the GCC countries. Energy supplies, investment, remittances and maritime commerce bind India to the region. Instability translates rapidly into economic vulnerability at home.
The latest escalation makes those stakes immediate. Renewed US–Iran attacks on shipping have pushed crude oil above $100 a barrel while traffic through Hormuz remains severely disrupted. The Houthis’ seizure of Mocha on Yemen’s Red Sea coast has heightened the threat around Bab-el-Mandeb. Pressure on both waterways exposes India’s energy and trading interests to overlapping risks.
BRICS cannot itself provide a collective-security response. Members and participants continue to rely on bilateral relationships and other security arrangements. India’s useful contribution is to preserve diplomatic engagement while defending sovereignty, civilian protection, freedom of navigation and peaceful dispute resolution. Keeping adversaries talking is worthwhile, even when agreement on responsibility remains elusive.
That convening function extends to China. Xi Jinping’s visit to Delhi, his first to India since 2019, offers an opportunity to sustain the gradual stabilisation of relations without obscuring strategic mistrust. The Modi–Xi meeting at Kazan in 2024 showed how multilateral gatherings can create space for bilateral progress. Cooperation within BRICS should support such engagement without being mistaken for strategic convergence.
The same realism should inform claims about the Global South. India, Brazil, Indonesia, Ethiopia and the UAE share concern about inadequate representation in global institutions, but they differ in their security interests and external partnerships. They seek greater influence without necessarily adopting a single foreign policy. India can articulate common demands while allowing room for different national choices.
For India, this means translating the demand for representation into sustained negotiations on institutional reform. A common position gains credibility when members can explain whose participation would expand, which decisions would become fairer, and how development needs would be better served. The Global South’s diversity should help shape those proposals, giving smaller economies a meaningful stake in the agenda.
Political flexibility must nevertheless yield something useful. The central test is whether BRICS can build mechanisms that endure after leaders leave. Cooperation on small businesses, public health, climate-resilient agriculture, disaster warning and digital public infrastructure offers practical possibilities. Willing members should be able to advance specific projects without making every initiative hostage to agreement on unrelated conflicts.
Flexibility also needs rules. Projects should remain open to other members, clearly specify funding and implementation responsibilities, and report progress against agreed milestones. Otherwise, cooperation among willing participants could fragment BRICS into overlapping announcements or arrangements dominated by its strongest members. India should favour transparent initiatives whose benefits can be demonstrated and whose continuity does not depend on the political mood at the next summit.
Development finance offers another measure of usefulness. The New Development Bank’s proposed rupee-denominated Maharaja Bond could help finance Indian infrastructure while reducing currency mismatches. Its value lies in broadening financing options. Similarly, payment cooperation should pursue lower costs and interoperability, with appropriate safeguards. Neither objective requires a common currency or a political campaign against the dollar.
India must also remain vigilant to economic asymmetry. Closer engagement with China can create opportunities while deepening dependence on critical imports. Diversified supply chains, stronger domestic capabilities and reciprocal market access remain essential. BRICS cooperation should be judged by its ability to increase resilience, not merely by whether it expands trade or creates additional institutions.
India’s distinctive advantage is its ability to maintain meaningful relationships across the grouping’s dividing lines. It can use that position to foster a political culture in which disagreement does not automatically lead to paralysis. Consensus should underpin collective positions; practical cooperation should be sufficiently flexible to proceed where interests overlap. Clear responsibilities and follow-through will matter more than ambitious declarations.
Success in Delhi will therefore require both restraint and delivery: keeping Iran and the Gulf Arabs engaged, sustaining dialogue with China, advancing useful development cooperation, and strengthening the Global South’s institutional voice. Strategic autonomy has traditionally been understood as India’s freedom of choice. Its BRICS moment offers a larger opportunity: to make that freedom compatible with collective action in an increasingly multipolar world.
This article was first published on Times Now Digital on September 11, 2026 and can be accessed here.
