The Lift Line
Since the expansion in 2024, BRICS’ identity has evolved, but a common focus remains elusive.
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
BRICS is the most tested current-affairs topic of the year, and the 18th Summit gives it its most testable turn. This editorial is the shortest available frame that shows the cost of expansion on the grouping’s coherence, and it names the specific pressure points, Iran, Israel, Trump, that Prelims trap-setters and Mains examiners will exploit. Preparing this one editorial covers the difficult parts of the topic that most compilations skip.
GS Paper 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
| Concept | Meaning | Why it is testable |
|---|---|---|
| BRICS expansion (2024) | Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE joined; Indonesia in 2025 | Membership questions now have 10 correct entries, not 5 |
| Presidency, rotating | Chair rotates by consensus; India’s 2026 chair follows Brazil (2025) | Prelims dates trap: India has held the chair since 2026, taken on 1 January |
| BRICS-Plus | Partner-country invitees at the plenary side | 2026 invitees include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Malaysia |
| Joint declaration | Consensus document, not majority vote | Explains why enlargement changes the arithmetic |
Background and Context
The occasion. The 18th BRICS Summit convenes at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12 and 13 September 2026, under India’s chairship. India has held the rotating chair since 2026, having taken it on 1 January 2026 in succession to Brazil. The summit theme is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
India as host, before. India has hosted BRICS three earlier times: New Delhi (2012), Goa (2016) and the virtual 2021 summit under COVID conditions. Each of those was a five-member configuration in which consensus was easier to manage.
The room today. Since the 2024 expansion admitting Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Indonesia’s induction from January 2025, BRICS has eleven full members. BRICS also has ten formal Partner Countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, nine of which took part at New Delhi. Leaders participating include Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian, alongside Ramaphosa, el-Sisi, Subianto and Ahmed.
The Analysis
1. Expansion has moved BRICS from a small caucus to a mid-size assembly. With eleven members, the arithmetic of consensus changes. A joint statement that satisfies a Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa configuration is not the same document that must also satisfy Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia. The Hindu’s phrase, a common focus remains elusive, is a diplomatic euphemism for the structural point that broader membership tends to produce broader language.
2. Active wars have split the room. Iran was struck by the United States and Israel earlier in the summit cycle; the UAE, in the same neighbourhood, was struck by Iran in retaliation. Both are BRICS members. No joint narrative on West Asia can hold both positions without emptying itself. India’s own posture, a middle path on Israel that diverged from the bloc’s traditionally critical line, added a third strand to a debate that cannot be reconciled at the plenary.
3. The largest external pressure comes from Washington. President Trump has repeatedly accused BRICS of plotting to displace the dollar and, in November 2024, threatened 100 per cent tariffs on members moving away from it, with additional tariffs on countries aligning with “anti-American” BRICS policies at the Rio summit of 2025. Neither the 100 per cent de-dollarisation tariff nor a BRICS-specific alignment tariff was enacted as a standalone measure, though tariff action against individual BRICS members followed on other grounds during 2025, but the framing incentive is real: a New Delhi declaration read as an anti-dollar manifesto would complicate India’s parallel trade negotiations with the same administration.
4. India’s framing choice is deliberate. New Delhi has cast BRICS payments work as cutting transaction cost and settlement time, not as displacing the dollar; it has anchored the theme in four broad pillars, resilience, innovation, cooperation, sustainability, that admit specific deliverables without provocative headline language; and it has projected Global South reach through partner invitees rather than through further expansion.
5. The bloc’s economic and demographic weight is real. BRICS today accounts for roughly half of the world’s population, about two-fifths of global GDP (PPP terms) and around a fourth of global trade, and includes many of the world’s largest energy producers and consumers. This weight is why declarations from the grouping carry heft even where its internal coherence is thin.
6. The bilateral track will carry the geopolitical weight. The plenary declaration is likely to be broad; the geopolitically decisive events will occur at the margins, a Modi-Xi bilateral, Xi’s first India visit in seven years, and the messaging value of leaders’ handshakes for a Washington audience.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
The summit:
- 18th BRICS Summit, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, 12 and 13 September 2026, under India’s chairship (held since 2026, taken on 1 January, succeeding Brazil).
- Theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
- Eleven members (2026): Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia. Saudi Arabia is listed as a member by BRICS and by India’s Chairship, though Riyadh has never publicly confirmed formal accession.
- Partner-country invitees at New Delhi: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Malaysia (among others).
- India’s previous BRICS hosting: New Delhi 2012, Goa 2016, virtual 2021.
The heft, in one line each:
- ~50 per cent of world population.
- ~40 per cent of global GDP (PPP terms).
- ~25 per cent of global trade.
- Includes many of the world’s largest energy producers and consumers.
The pressures on the declaration:
- Ongoing conflict involving Iran (struck by U.S. and Israel) and retaliation reaching the UAE.
- Divergence between India’s measured position on Israel and the bloc’s traditionally critical line.
- U.S. President Trump’s November 2024 threat of 100 per cent tariffs on BRICS members moving away from the dollar; additional tariffs threatened for alignment with “anti-American” BRICS policies at Rio (2025); the threats were not carried out.
⚠️ Watch the trap: BRICS operates by consensus, not by majority vote. Enlargement therefore adds veto points; it does not add coalition arithmetic. Answering as though BRICS were a voting bloc is the most common Mains error on this topic.
⚠️ A second trap: India has held the presidency since 1 January 2026, so it did not begin on the summit date. The chairship is calendar-year; the summit is one event within it.
The Debate
FOR (a substantive declaration is achievable): The theme is deliberately broad; deliverables clustered around DPI cooperation, NDB co-financing, climate-finance framing and UNSC reform are ones on which the eleven members’ interests diverge least. India’s framing of payments work as cost reduction has already been road-tested at Jaipur in August, and a New Delhi declaration that keeps the language technical can survive the room.
AGAINST (the grouping’s contradictions dominate): With active wars involving multiple members, an ideologically diverse bench and an American administration threatening tariffs, any declaration ambitious enough to matter is ambitious enough to fracture. Enlargement has not produced greater weight; it has produced greater dilution. A summit that ends without a joint statement, or with one so general as to be meaningless, is a plausible outcome.
Balanced verdict: Expect a dense but carefully drafted declaration, plus a set of bilateral deliverables that carry the weight the plenary cannot. India’s diplomatic success will be measured less by the presence of anti-Western rhetoric than by its absence; less by dramatic language on payments than by concrete commitments on institutional cooperation. That trade-off is the presidency’s opportunity, and its constraint.
How to Think About This
For any multilateral grouping, ask two questions in this order. First: does the grouping decide by consensus or by majority? Where the answer is consensus, membership size is a constraint on ambition, not a resource. Second: what is the grouping’s relationship with the incumbent order, inside, outside or alongside it? BRICS today is best read as alongside: it participates in the international financial system while pressing for reforms to it, and its declarations are useful diplomatic instruments rather than institutional acts. That reading dissolves most of the “de-dollarisation” confusion in one step.
The 18th BRICS Summit at New Delhi tests whether an enlarged, ideologically diverse grouping can still produce a coherent joint statement. Examine the sources of internal divergence and India's diplomatic options as host. (250 words)
India’s 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12 and 13 September 2026 comes with an inheritance that few of its recent hosts have faced. The grouping has grown from five to eleven members in two years, three of them are directly or indirectly at war, and the incumbent global power has publicly cast the bloc as a threat.
Three fault lines run through the room. The first is composition.
The 2024 expansion added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Indonesia followed in 2025, taking membership to eleven. Enlargement widens agenda reach but narrows the space of positions on which all eleven can agree, so declarations become more general as the room becomes more diverse.
The second is West Asia. Iran, a victim of the U.S. and Israeli strikes, and the UAE, targeted by Iran in retaliation, are in the same room; and India’s position on Israel is closer to a middle path than the bloc’s traditional line, which produced an earlier internal disagreement.
The third is Washington. President Trump has accused BRICS of plotting to overthrow the dollar and has threatened tariffs on members pursuing intra-BRICS payments, at the very moment New Delhi is negotiating a trade reset with the same administration.
Against these constraints, India’s leverage lies in framing. It has consistently cast payment-system work as cost reduction rather than currency displacement; it has anchored the theme in resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability, which is broad enough to survive the divergences; and it has invited partner-country leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Malaysia, which projects Global South reach without adding permanent veto points.
The measurable deliverables that a coherent declaration can carry, DPI cooperation, NDB co-financing, climate finance framing, a UNSC reform mention, are precisely those on which the eleven members’ interests diverge least.
A joint statement dense in specifics, thin in provocations and generous in Global South framing is India’s realistic objective. It will not silence the grouping’s contradictions, but it will convert one summit’s difficult inheritance into a defensible presidency.
Interview Angle
"India's BRICS chairship coincides with an American President threatening tariffs on the very grouping India is hosting. If you were the Sherpa, which of the summit's likely deliverables would you drop or dilute to keep Washington off, and which would you defend at any cost?"
Takeaway Box
- BRICS operates by consensus, so enlargement adds veto points rather than voting weight. Get this right; almost every other analytical question follows.
- Eleven members in 2026: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia.
- The three fault lines are composition (expansion diluted the caucus), West Asia (Iran, UAE, India-on-Israel), and Washington (Trump’s tariff threats on BRICS payments).
- India’s framing choice is to cast payments work as cost reduction, not currency displacement, which is diplomatically safer and analytically stronger.
- The bloc’s heft is real: ~50 per cent of population, ~40 per cent of GDP (PPP), ~25 per cent of trade, alongside the world’s largest energy producers and consumers.
Sources: The Hindu, MEA and PIB briefings on the 18th BRICS Summit.
The Hindu argues that securing a substantive joint statement at the 18th BRICS Summit is India’s most difficult multilateral hosting task since the 2023 G-20, because expansion has diluted a common focus, active regional wars split the room, and Washington’s threat of tariffs on any BRICS member pursuing intra-bloc payments hangs over every deliverable, so a successful declaration would itself be a diplomatic win.
- Since expansion in 2024 and Indonesia’s induction in 2025, BRICS has grown from five to eleven members and its identity has changed faster than any common focus has emerged.
- The war involving Iran has split the grouping: Iran, struck by the U.S. and Israel, and the UAE, retaliated against by Iran, have not agreed to a common narrative, and India’s more measured position on Israel diverges from the traditionally critical line the bloc has taken.
- President Trump has accused BRICS of plotting to overthrow the dollar and has threatened tariffs on members increasing intra-bloc payments and trade, precisely as New Delhi seeks to restore ties with Washington on trade and Indo-Pacific strategy.
- BRICS today covers roughly half the world’s population, two-fifths of global GDP and a fourth of global trade, and includes many of the world’s largest energy producers and consumers, so its heft is real even where its coherence is thin.
A counter-view holds that BRICS is best understood as a symbolic counterweight rather than a functioning bloc; that expansion, far from adding weight, adds veto points and slows consensus; and that a joint statement dressed up as a win papers over the same divergences that will re-emerge the day after the summit ends.
Aim the declaration at agenda-setting reform, international financial architecture, DPI cooperation, climate finance floor, where consensus is easier and deliverables measurable; keep language on payments strictly at cost and settlement efficiency to avoid feeding Washington’s de-dollarisation narrative; and let bilateral outcomes on the margins, including a Xi-Modi meeting, carry the geopolitical weight the plenary cannot.
Cite this page: More Heft: On India, the 18th BRICS Summit and the Difficulty of Hosting a Crowded Room — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
