The Lift Line
A plurilateral grouping is judged not by the declarations issued at the summit, but by the deliverables its members can point to a year later.
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
Bilateral, regional and global groupings are core GS 2 material, and this piece is written by a former Foreign Secretary and G20 Chief Coordinator, which places it directly inside the institutional-machinery frame examiners look for. It complements our companion editorial by T.S. Tirumurti on the reformist agenda of BRICS by focusing on what should be delivered rather than what should be declared.
GS Paper 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests; important international institutions, agencies and fora.
| Concept | Meaning | Why it is testable |
|---|---|---|
| Practical multipolarity | The strategic bet that multiple centres of power emerge through delivery-focused cooperation, not through bloc alignment | The Indian framing for its chairship |
| Strategic autonomy | The doctrine of preserving freedom of action across partnerships and issues | The organising principle of Indian foreign policy the piece invokes |
| New Development Bank (NDB) | The BRICS-established multilateral development bank; headquartered in Shanghai; established in July 2015 | Institutional deliverable and a Prelims staple |
| NDB climate target | The bank’s 2022-26 strategy set a target of directing 40 per cent of financing to climate mitigation and adaptation | Concrete institutional target the piece tests against |
Background and Context
This is a signed opinion column by Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, former Foreign Secretary of India, former Indian Ambassador to the United States and India’s Chief Coordinator for the G20 Presidency. The argument below is his rather than the newspaper’s.
The occasion is the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12 and 13 September 2026. It falls in the 20th year of BRICS cooperation and is India’s fourth BRICS chairship. India assumed the chairship on January 2026 in succession to Brazil, whose 2025 chairship set several precedents including the BRICS Women’s Startups Contest. India’s chairship theme is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
BRICS today has 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. The grouping represents close to half the world’s population. Under India’s chairship, more than 350 meetings out of a planned programme of over 400 engagements have been concluded across nearly 30 Indian cities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Rio Summit in 2025, articulated a “people-centric approach” and a “Humanity First” framing for the year’s work.
The Analysis
1. The strategic frame is autonomy, not alignment. The piece is explicit that “our foreign policy is strongest when it enlarges our room for manoeuvre. Strategic autonomy means freedom to work with different partners on different issues.” BRICS on this reading is one platform among several, and its value is measured by what it adds to India’s manoeuvre room rather than by whether it forces a choice between camps.
2. The chairship’s institutional density is unusual. More than 350 meetings out of a planned 400-plus across nearly 30 cities is a large administrative footprint for a chairship year. It embeds line ministries and state governments in the work, which is the mechanism by which BRICS outputs travel from the summit table to the districts.
3. The innovation track has specific instruments. The action plan on innovation-led growth by startups provides for a BRICS Incubator Network connecting nodal agencies, incubators and firms across member countries, and for a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund with voluntary public and private financing for early and growth-stage ventures. The BRICS Women’s Startups Contest carried over from Brazil’s 2025 chairship links women-led ventures to investors and accelerators. The proposed “Bharat Innovates” platform is intended to showcase India’s startup ecosystem to the BRICS network.
4. The MSME track is designed to widen access. The BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal, the Dialogue on Finance and the Workplan on the Internationalisation of MSMEs are the three instruments. Their intended outcome is that Indian small firms can participate in value chains across the grouping, with reduced procedural friction and improved standards cooperation.
5. The New Development Bank is the concrete deliverable. The NDB 2022-26 strategy set a target of directing 40 per cent of financing to climate mitigation and adaptation. India was NDB’s second-largest recipient as of June 2026 with 35 approved projects worth USD 10.5 billion and about USD 6 billion disbursed, spanning transport, water, clean energy and urban infrastructure. The BRICS Leaders’ Framework Declaration on Climate Finance adopted in Rio provides the political grounding, and the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees initiative is being incubated as a pilot within NDB to de-risk infrastructure investment. A climate-resilience window or guarantee facility within NDB would convert the Rio framework into investible projects.
6. The agriculture and health tracks depend on domestic delivery. The BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture and the Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture produce knowledge that has to travel through India’s State Agricultural Universities, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state extension systems to reach the field. The test is not the network but the transmission.
7. The security track has to be measured, not asserted. BRICS security cooperation covers terrorism, cybercrime, illicit drugs, disruptions in food and energy supplies and fragile supply chains. Prime Minister Modi has argued within BRICS for an unequivocal approach to terrorism and against double standards. The piece is careful to say that cooperation matters when it improves information sharing, institutional capacity and preparedness, which is the test rather than the vocabulary.
8. The credibility test is explicit and one year out. The piece nominates the questions to be asked in September 2027: Are incubator links functioning? Are startups securing cross-border pilots or investment? Are MSMEs using the platforms? Are farmers and researchers participating? Are climate and infrastructure projects moving from approval to completion? A chairship that can answer yes on several of these has succeeded; one that cannot has not.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
The summit and the chairship:
- 18th BRICS Summit: 12-13 September 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
- India’s fourth BRICS chairship; India assumed chairship in January 2026.
- Theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
- Meetings concluded during India’s chairship: more than 350 out of a planned 400-plus across nearly 30 Indian cities.
- PM Modi articulated the “people-centric” and “Humanity First” framing at the Rio Summit in 2025.
The members and reach:
- 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia.
- Represents close to half the world’s population.
- BRICS has 10 partner countries.
The New Development Bank:
- Headquartered in Shanghai; established July 2015; founder members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
- 2022-26 strategy target: 40 per cent of financing to climate mitigation and adaptation.
- India: NDB’s second-largest recipient as of June 2026.
- India portfolio at NDB: 35 approved projects worth USD 10.5 billion, about USD 6 billion disbursed.
- Portfolio sectors: transport, water, clean energy, urban infrastructure.
- BRICS Multilateral Guarantees initiative: being incubated as a pilot within NDB.
The innovation and MSME architecture:
- BRICS Incubator Network: connects nodal agencies, incubators and firms across members.
- BRICS Startup Innovation Fund: voluntary public and private financing for early and growth-stage ventures.
- BRICS Women’s Startups Contest: launched during Brazil’s 2025 chairship.
- Proposed “Bharat Innovates” platform: showcases India’s startup ecosystem to the BRICS network.
- BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal, Dialogue on Finance and Workplan on Internationalisation.
The climate track:
- BRICS Leaders’ Framework Declaration on Climate Finance: adopted at Rio (2025).
- Chairship principles: community-based adaptation, climate-resilient urban infrastructure, smart grids, energy storage.
Watch the trap: the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and the New Development Bank (NDB) are two separate institutions. The CRA is the balance-of-payments safety net; NDB is the development bank. A candidate who conflates them will lose the Prelims mark.
The Debate
FOR the practical-multipolarity framing: The piece’s core proposition, that BRICS is most useful as a platform for practical cooperation and that its legitimacy comes from outcomes, is the framing most compatible with India’s multi-alignment strategy. Institutional density (350+ meetings across 30 cities), a concrete NDB portfolio (USD 10.5 billion) and identifiable instruments (Incubator Network, Startup Innovation Fund, MSME Portal) give the chairship the tools to be judged on outputs.
AGAINST reading practical multipolarity as sufficient: With eleven members carrying divergent political systems and unresolved bilateral disputes, the consensus principle will collide with the outputs agenda, and a chairship focused on deliverables risks under-delivering on both institutional reform (UNSC reform, de-dollarisation) and bloc coherence. Some members will pull the group harder in either direction than the delivery frame accommodates.
Balanced verdict: Both readings are correct in different registers. The delivery frame is the right operational test for the chairship year; the institutional-reform frame is the right medium-term test for the grouping’s founding purpose. India can hold both simultaneously by nominating twelve-month outcome indicators for each track, ensuring each mechanism has an identified funder and implementer, and using a proposed New Development Bank climate window as the concrete instrument for the Rio climate finance framework. Bloc politics can be resisted; delivery cannot be substituted.
How to Think About This
For any plurilateral chairship, ask four sequential questions. First, does the chairship have institutional density (meetings, tracks, host-city engagement) or is it a summit-only exercise? Density is a leading indicator of delivery. Second, does each track have an identified mechanism, or does the declaration substitute for the mechanism? Third, does the mechanism have an identified funder and implementer, or is it voluntary in a way that leaves accountability open? Fourth, has the chair set an outcome test date on which it invites judgement? A chairship that answers yes on all four has bought itself the right to be evaluated on delivery rather than declaration.
Diagram-in-Words
PYQ Linkage
- UPSC CSE Mains 2022, GS2: “‘Clean energy is the order of the day.’ Describe briefly India’s changing policy towards climate change in various international fora in the context of geopolitics.” Reads across the proposed NDB climate window and the BRICS climate architecture.
- UPSC CSE Mains 2018, GS2: “‘India’s relations with Israel have, of late, acquired a depth and diversity, which cannot be rolled back.’ Discuss.” Uses the same strategic-autonomy logic in a bilateral setting.
- UPSC CSE Mains 2016, GS2: “Evaluate the economic and strategic dimensions of India’s Look East Policy in the context of the post Cold War international scenario.” Frames the multi-alignment argument.
Sources: Economic Times, Ministry of External Affairs, New Development Bank
India’s 2026 BRICS chairship at the 18th summit is not an attempt to build a rigid bloc; it is a bet that BRICS is most useful as a platform for practical cooperation that widens India’s strategic autonomy and that its lasting legitimacy will come from measurable outcomes for citizens rather than from summit declarations.
- India has held four BRICS chairships and the summit falls in the 20th year of BRICS cooperation, with the grouping now representing close to half the world’s population across 11 members.
- Under India’s chairship more than 350 meetings out of a planned programme of over 400 engagements have been concluded across nearly 30 Indian cities, giving the innovation, MSME, health, agriculture and climate tracks unusual institutional density.
- The New Development Bank’s 2022-26 strategy set a 40 per cent climate finance target; India was NDB’s second-largest recipient as of June 2026 with 35 approved projects worth USD 10.5 billion and about USD 6 billion disbursed.
- The action plan on innovation-led growth by startups provides for a BRICS Incubator Network and a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund, and the MSME Cooperation Portal and Workplan on Internationalisation of MSMEs offer instruments to improve smaller firms’ access to finance, technology and markets across the grouping.
Practical multipolarity in a group of 11 members with divergent political systems, foreign-policy priorities and unresolved bilateral disputes will collide with the consensus principle at some point, and a chairship measured by deliverables risks under-delivering on both institutional reform and bloc coherence simultaneously; more ambitious BRICS advocates want harder positions on de-dollarisation and on the reform of the United Nations Security Council.
Tie each of the innovation, MSME, health, agriculture, climate and security tracks to specific outcome indicators reviewed a year from now, ensure that mechanisms remaining voluntary or developmental have a clearly identified funder and implementer, use a proposed New Development Bank climate window as the concrete instrument for the Rio climate finance framework, and treat the BRICS security cooperation on terrorism, cybercrime and food-and-energy supply chains as an accountability agenda rather than a rhetorical one.
India's BRICS chairship claims to advance "practical multipolarity" rather than bloc politics. Examine the specific institutional mechanisms, including the New Development Bank, the Startup Innovation Fund, the MSME Cooperation Portal and the climate architecture, through which this claim can be tested a year from now. (250 words)
A plurilateral grouping is credible in the twenty-first century only when it delivers institutional outputs that its members can point to in their own budgets and legislatures. The 18th BRICS Summit sits in the 20th year of BRICS cooperation and during India’s fourth BRICS chairship, and the productive test of its declarations is whether they are converted into instruments with identifiable owners, timelines and beneficiaries within twelve months.
India’s chairship has organised its work under the four pillars of Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability. Six substantive tracks carry the load.
The innovation track advances a BRICS Incubator Network and a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund with voluntary public and private financing, and picks up the BRICS Women’s Startups Contest from Brazil’s 2025 chairship. The MSME track advances the BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal, a Dialogue on Finance and a Workplan on Internationalisation, whose intended outcomes are access to finance, technology and markets across broader value chains.
The agriculture track carries the BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture and Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture; the test is whether their outputs travel through Indian agricultural universities and state extension systems. The climate track produced principles on community-based adaptation, climate-resilient urban infrastructure, smart grids and energy storage, and rests on the New Development Bank’s 40 per cent climate financing target for 2022-26.
As of June 2026, India was NDB’s second-largest recipient with 35 approved projects worth USD 10.5 billion and about USD 6 billion disbursed. The security track carries counter-terrorism, cybercrime and the resilience of food and energy supply chains.
Each track has intent, several have mechanisms, and their credibility a year from now will be measured by outputs against those mechanisms.
A plurilateral chairship succeeds when a member’s citizens can see the outcome without knowing the venue. Cross-border pilots by BRICS-network startups, sanctioned NDB projects delivered to completion, MSME participation in cross-BRICS value chains and functioning digital agriculture demonstrations in Indian districts are the natural indicators of that success.
The framing question is not whether BRICS has bloc coherence; the framing question is whether it has practical outputs, and India’s chairship gives itself the machinery to be judged on the second.
Interview Angle
"Twelve months from now, you have to tell the House whether India's BRICS chairship succeeded. Which three specific deliverables would you point to as evidence, and which single failure would you concede?"
Cite this page: Beyond Bloc Politics: India's BRICS Bet on Practical Multipolarity — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
