Wednesday 09 / September / 2026
New Delhi: The BRICS Summit in New Delhi this week comes at a defining moment for both the grouping and Indian foreign policy, as an expanded BRICS seeks to translate its growing economic and demographic weight into greater influence over the international order.
BRICS is no longer the relatively compact five-member forum that India helped build around the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Its expansion has brought in a wider range of countries from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, giving the grouping greater geographic reach and a stronger claim to represent the concerns of the Global South.
But enlargement has also exposed deeper contradictions.
For India, the central question is whether a larger BRICS can strengthen its ability to advance a multipolar world or whether the grouping's growing diversity will make it harder for New Delhi to exercise influence amid the competing interests of China, Russia and an increasingly assertive group of middle powers.
The answer may lie somewhere between the two.
The expanded BRICS offers India access to a broader Global South constituency. At the same time, it presents New Delhi with a far more complicated exercise in coalition-building.
India must manage its rivalry with China without allowing BRICS to become China-centric, maintain its strategic partnership with Russia without adopting Moscow's confrontation with the West, accommodate Iran without turning the grouping into an anti-Western platform, and deepen ties with pragmatic powers such as the UAE and Indonesia.
At the same time, New Delhi must ensure that continued expansion does not come at the expense of BRICS' ability to reach consensus.
Wider BRICS, wider opportunity
There are clear reasons for India to welcome the expansion.
The original BRICS gave New Delhi a rare diplomatic platform where it could engage China and Russia while simultaneously developing strategic partnerships with the United States, Europe and Japan. BRICS+ widens that diplomatic space.
The enlarged grouping brings India closer to major economies across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, many of which do not want to permanently align themselves with either the Western or Chinese camp.
That position closely mirrors India's own foreign-policy preference for strategic autonomy.
BRICS+ also gives New Delhi a platform to promote issues that have become central to its Global South diplomacy, including reform of global institutions, development financing, climate justice, technology access, food and energy security, resilient supply chains and digital public infrastructure.
For India, the objective is not to replace the existing international system with a BRICS-led alternative. Rather, it is to increase its bargaining power within that system.
The grouping can strengthen India's argument for greater representation in institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
The diversity of the new membership could also work to India's advantage.
The UAE's emphasis on economic diversification and multiple partnerships is broadly compatible with India's preference for flexible strategic relationships. Indonesia has long pursued strategic autonomy, while Egypt and Ethiopia bring their own regional and development priorities.
If managed effectively, this diversity could prevent any single member from imposing a dominant geopolitical identity on BRICS.
China, however, remains India's biggest strategic dilemma inside BRICS.
Although relations between the two Asian powers have shown signs of cautious stabilisation, their structural competition remains. Beijing has significant advantages within an expanded BRICS, including a larger economy, extensive trade relationships with developing countries, greater financial resources and a substantial infrastructure footprint across the Global South.
China could therefore seek to use a larger BRICS to advance a post-Western international order in which Beijing plays a central role.
India cannot realistically counter China's influence by attempting to match its financial or economic resources.
Its more effective strategy would be to prevent Chinese dominance by encouraging institutional plurality.
That means building issue-based coalitions with Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, Indonesia, Egypt and other members, protecting consensus-based decision-making and resisting efforts to define BRICS primarily through opposition to the West.
India's objective should be a BRICS made up of multiple centres of autonomy rather than competing blocs.
Keeping Russia close without following Moscow
Russia presents a different challenge.
Moscow remains an important strategic partner for India and a significant pillar of New Delhi's vision of a multipolar world. India has little interest in seeing Russia weakened to such an extent that the balance of power in Eurasia shifts further towards China.
Keeping Russia engaged in BRICS therefore remains strategically important.
But Moscow's increasingly confrontational relationship with the West creates pressure for BRICS to adopt a more explicitly anti-Western identity.
India is unlikely to favour such a transformation.
New Delhi can support greater use of national currencies, payment interoperability and financial diversification without turning de-dollarisation into an ideological campaign.
It can strengthen Global South cooperation without defining the G7 as an adversary. And it can maintain its partnership with Russia while continuing to deepen relations with Washington, Brussels and Tokyo.
This balancing act will become more difficult as BRICS expands.
Iran is likely to favour stronger challenges to Western financial and political dominance, while the UAE is more likely to favour economic diversification alongside its longstanding Western partnerships.
Indonesia, meanwhile, brings its own tradition of non-alignment and strategic autonomy.
For India, this diversity could become a strategic advantage.
A BRICS in which no single geopolitical interpretation can command consensus would be more difficult for China or Russia to dominate.
NDB could become a key test
The future direction of the New Development Bank could be one of the most important tests of India's influence within the expanded grouping.
The Shanghai-based bank remains one of BRICS' most significant institutional achievements. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, it had approved $42.9 billion in financing for 140 projects across clean energy, transport, water and sanitation, environmental protection, social infrastructure and digital development.
India has been among its largest beneficiaries, with the bank committing nearly $10 billion to 32 Indian projects.
But the NDB is also at the centre of a larger debate over the future of BRICS.
Russia has a strong interest in alternative financial mechanisms amid Western sanctions. China has incentives to promote greater use of non-dollar currencies and financial arrangements less dependent on Western institutions.
India's preferred approach is likely to be more pragmatic.
New Delhi has an interest in local-currency financing because it can reduce exchange-rate risks and help mobilise domestic capital. The NDB's plans to expand rupee-denominated financing therefore have clear economic value for India.
But local-currency financing should not automatically be interpreted as an attempt to dismantle the dollar-based international financial system.
India can support financial diversification while avoiding an ideological campaign for de-dollarisation.
The same principle applies to BRICS payment systems. Greater interoperability between national payment platforms and potentially central-bank digital currencies could increase economic options for member states without requiring the creation of a common BRICS currency.
For India, the priority should be to strengthen the NDB as a development institution rather than transform it into a geopolitical instrument.
That means promoting transparent governance, diversified sources of capital, high lending standards, greater private-sector participation and wider use of member currencies.
From expansion to consolidation
The New Delhi summit therefore comes with a larger question than the wording of the final declaration.
India's success should not simply be measured by the number of initiatives announced or the possibility of further expansion. It should be judged by whether New Delhi can begin shifting BRICS from expansion towards consolidation.
The grouping already has considerable geopolitical weight. What it lacks is coherence.
Continued expansion without clear membership criteria could turn BRICS into an unwieldy Global South assembly — large enough to attract international attention but too divided to make meaningful decisions.
India therefore has an interest in maintaining a clear distinction between full members, partner countries and outreach mechanisms.
The broader strategy should be equally clear.
New Delhi must strengthen the Global South without embracing anti-Westernism, maintain its relationship with Russia without following Moscow's geopolitical path, engage China without accepting Chinese primacy and cultivate new BRICS members as autonomous partners rather than additions to another power's camp.
The New Delhi summit offers India the opportunity to demonstrate its diplomatic leadership. What follows will test its statecraft.
The real issue is not whether BRICS+ is stronger than the original BRICS. It is whether India can make a larger and more contradictory grouping work in favour of a multipolar order that preserves Indian strategic autonomy.
