Bringing Coherence and Cohesion to BRICS: India's Summit Test

The Lift Line

Two wars inside the room, one country asking everyone to talk about agriculture instead. That is not weakness. It is the only strategy available to a host that wants a declaration.

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

BRICS is one of the most consistently examined GS2 topics. This editorial is valuable because it analyses the internal dynamics rather than just listing BRICS facts, which is what Mains answers need. It gives you the two fissures, India’s specific strategy to manage them, and the institutional instruments that make BRICS more than a talking shop.

GS Paper 2: Important international institutions; India’s groupings; bilateral, regional and global groupings affecting India’s interests.

Background and Context

India hosts the 18th BRICS Summit on September 12-13, 2026, in New Delhi. The grouping traces its informal origin to a Foreign Ministers’ meeting on the sidelines of UNGA in 2006 (as BRIC, without South Africa); the first leaders’ summit was held at Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009. Counted from the informal 2006 meeting, 2026 marks 20 years of the grouping. BRICS today comprises 10 full member-states representing approximately 50 per cent of the world’s population, with Saudi Arabia attending as an invited partner rather than as a fully formalised member.

The editorial identifies two centrifugal forces threatening the summit’s ability to produce a joint declaration.

First: The anti-West versus non-anti-West split. Russia and China seek to use BRICS to advance a BRICS currency, de-dollarisation and a BRICS Pay mechanism to bypass SWIFT and Western sanctions. India, Brazil, and most other members have resisted. EAM S Jaishankar’s formulation that India is “non-western but not anti-western” articulates the majority position. Saudi Arabia has not yet fully and formally joined BRICS as a member, partly to avoid antagonising the United States.

Second: The Iran-UAE fissure. The BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in May 2026 ended without a joint declaration after acrimonious exchanges between the Iranian and Emirati camps over the West Asia conflict. This is the expanded BRICS, which brought in Iran and the UAE among others in 2024, internalising a regional war.

India’s BRICS presidency organised 350 meetings and high-level engagements, including 22 ministerials, across 25 Indian cities, producing joint declarations in non-political tracks (trade, industry, science, environment, education, culture) despite the political logjam.

The Analysis

1. India’s two-track approach is the editorial’s thesis. The editorial’s explicit formulation: “more policies and less politics.” Where the grouping cannot agree on high-politics questions (West Asia, anti-West financial architecture), India has kept BRICS busy and productive on developmental tracks. This is a strategy, not an evasion.

2. The Saudi Arabia signal is diagnostic. Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to fully formalise BRICS membership to avoid antagonising Trump is a direct measure of how anti-West the grouping appears to the outside world. The more Russia and China push the anti-West agenda, the harder it is for Gulf states to participate. India’s balancing is therefore essential not just to India but to BRICS’s membership breadth.

3. G20 precedent gives India credibility as a consensus-builder. The 2023 New Delhi G20 produced a joint declaration when many predicted it would not, on Ukraine language and Global South representation. India is deploying the same skill set here. The editorial notes this explicitly.

4. The Iran-UAE fissure is harder than the anti-West one. The pro-West versus anti-West divide is structural and both sides know the limits. The Iran-UAE conflict is active, territorial and zero-sum in its diplomatic framing. Finding text that Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia can all accept on the West Asia crisis is genuinely harder than finessing the de-dollarisation language. The editorial is cautious: it says this “places limits” but is “unlikely to sink” the declaration.

5. The sub-institutions make BRICS a doer. NDB, CRA and ICM are specifically cited as evidence that BRICS is not merely a summit. These institutions lend, guarantee and cooperate without requiring consensus on high-politics questions. This is BRICS’s comparative advantage over purely declaratory groupings.

Common exam error: candidates describe BRICS as if it is a unified bloc. The editorial makes clear that it is internally fractured on almost every consequential question. The correct analytical posture is to describe the fractures and then explain how India manages them, which is also how a well-structured Mains answer is built.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

The summit:

• 18th BRICS Summit: September 12-13, 2026, New Delhi.
• India holds the BRICS presidency in 2026.
• BRICS today has 10 full member-states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, UAE), plus Saudi Arabia as an invited partner. Together they represent approximately 50 per cent of the world’s population.
• The informal grouping (as BRIC) dates to a Foreign Ministers’ meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2006. The first leaders’ summit was at Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009; South Africa joined in 2011 to form BRICS.
• BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (May 2026): ended without joint declaration due to Iran-UAE acrimony.

India’s presidency outcomes:

• 350 meetings and high-level engagements.
• 22 ministerials.
• Engagements across 25 Indian cities.
• Joint declarations in trade, industry, science, technology, environment, legal, governance, social, education, culture tracks.

Key BRICS institutions:

• New Development Bank (NDB): BRICS multilateral development bank; headquarters in Shanghai.
• Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA): BRICS financial safety net for balance of payments support.
• BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism (ICM): platform for commercial bank cooperation.
• BRICS Pay: proposed mechanism by Russia and China to bypass SWIFT; not yet operationalised.
• SWIFT: Belgium-headquartered financial messaging network.

Political positions:

• Russia and China: push for BRICS currency, de-dollarisation, BRICS Pay to bypass SWIFT.
• India (EAM Jaishankar): “non-western but not anti-western.”
• Saudi Arabia: has not yet fully and formally joined BRICS as a member; attends as invited partner.

Watch the trap: Saudi Arabia is often listed as a full BRICS member in exam contexts. The editorial specifically notes it has “not yet fully and formally joined” to avoid antagonising Trump. Do not write it as a full member unless you verify post-summit.

The Debate

The case that India’s approach is the right one. BRICS’s value lies not in bloc cohesion but in scale, the grouping represents half the world’s population, and in its developmental institutions. A BRICS that fractures over the West Asia war or anti-West financial architecture serves no member’s interest. India’s track-specific productivity approach has already delivered joint declarations in ten non-political areas. The New Delhi Declaration, if secured, will be India’s proof of concept.

The case that this is managed failure. A summit where the foreign ministers could not agree in May, where a founding member (Saudi Arabia) has not formally joined, and where the two most powerful members are pushing an agenda the others cannot afford to endorse, is not being managed to success. It is a grouping whose expansion has imported more problems than capacities. The 350 meetings and 22 ministerials are process metrics; the outcome metrics are a blocked financial architecture and a war between two members.

The reconciliation. BRICS does not need to agree on everything to be valuable. The editorial’s “more policies and less politics” is not a consolation prize; it is a strategic choice about what a grouping of this diversity can realistically accomplish. The NDB lends, the CRA backstops, the ICM cooperates, and these activities do not require consensus on Ukraine or West Asia. India’s presidency has demonstrated that the developmental track can proceed even when the political track is blocked. That is the mature multilateralism argument, and it is the one that scores in Mains.

How to Think About This

Questions on multilateral groupings always risk being answered with a list of members and summits. The framework to use instead: What do members want from the grouping, what prevents them from getting it, and what keeps the grouping alive despite those constraints? For BRICS: India wants developmental legitimacy and Global South voice; Russia and China want anti-West infrastructure; Gulf states want economic diversification without political alignment costs. The constraint is that these wants are incompatible. The grouping survives because its sub-institutions (NDB, CRA) deliver value without requiring political consensus. Apply this framework to SAARC, G20 or any multilateral and it gives you a structural answer.

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

• 18th BRICS Summit: September 12-13, 2026, New Delhi; India holds the presidency; BRICS turns 20 as a formal institution.
• BRICS today has 10 full member-states representing approximately 50 per cent of the world’s population; Saudi Arabia has not yet fully formalised membership and attends as an invited partner.
• Two centrifugal forces: Russia-China anti-West push (currency, de-dollarisation, BRICS Pay to bypass SWIFT) and Iran-UAE fissure (May 2026 FM meeting ended without declaration).
• India’s position: “non-western but not anti-western” (Jaishankar); shared by Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, UAE.
• India’s presidency: 350 meetings, 22 ministerials, across 25 cities; joint declarations already in 10 non-political tracks.
• Key BRICS sub-institutions: New Development Bank (Shanghai), Contingent Reserve Arrangement, BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism.
• The editorial’s prescription: “more policies and less politics” for BRICS in its third decade.

Sources: Hindustan Times

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