Can India Turn the Global South’s Aspirations into Strategic Architecture despite challenges of Turbulent Global Scenario?

BRICS enters its third decade at a moment when the international order is undergoing profound strategic transformation. Its expanded membership gives the grouping unprecedented demographic, economic and geopolitical weight—but also exposes deep internal contradictions. As India assumes the BRICS Chairmanship in 2026, I share an analysis whether New Delhi can convert this diversity into practical cooperation, strengthen the voice of the Global South and help build a more representative multipolar order—without turning BRICS into an anti-Western coalition. There is still one month for the Summit and events do seem to be moving fast in optimistic and challenging side before India sets the stage for the Summit.

BRICS has the numbers. India has the bridge. Can India build the architecture?

BRICS is no longer just an acronym. The real question is what it can become.

Twenty years after its inception, BRICS has evolved from an economic concept into one of the most consequential platforms representing the Global South. But size alone does not create strategic influence.

With India assuming the BRICS Chairmanship in 2026, New Delhi faces a rare opportunity—and an equally serious test: Can India turn BRICS from a forum of declarations into an effective architecture for development, technology, financial resilience and a more representative global order?

The answer will depend on whether India can reconcile competing interests without allowing BRICS to become an anti-Western bloc.

India’s challenge is not to choose between the West and BRICS. It is to shape a multipolar system in which both can coexist.

Image Courtesy Ministry of External Affairs, India.

BRICS at Twenty: India’s Moment to Turn Aspiration into Architecture

India’s BRICS Chairmanship 2026 Amid Global Strategic Flux

Major General (Dr) S B Asthana, SM, VSM (Retd)

EXTRACT Twenty years after its inception, BRICS has evolved from an economic acronym into one of the most influential platforms of the Global South. Its expansion reflects widespread dissatisfaction with an international order that no longer mirrors contemporary realities, yet the grouping remains constrained by internal contradictions and competing national interests. As India assumes the BRICS Chairmanship in 2026, it has both a rare opportunity and a real challenge: to convert a largely declaratory forum into an effective instrument for development, technology cooperation and governance reform. Success will hinge on India’s ability to balance strategic autonomy with constructive global leadership.

Introduction

The international system is undergoing its most consequential transformation since the end of the Cold War. Unipolarity is giving way to a contested, multipolar order shaped by geopolitical rivalry, economic fragmentation, technological competition and declining faith in the institutions built after the Second World War. From Ukraine to West Asia to the Indo-Pacific, successive crises have exposed how poorly today’s multilateral architecture matches today’s realities.

BRICS has grown out of this vacuum: from a dialogue among emerging economies into the principal platform articulating the aspirations of the Global South. Two decades after the acronym was coined, the grouping now accounts for nearly half the world’s population and close to 40 per cent of global GDP in PPP terms, giving it a seat at the centre of debates on governance, development, finance, climate and technology.

That growth has also sharpened BRICS’s internal contradictions: a bloc that spans democracies and authoritarian states, energy exporters and importers, regional rivals and reform-minded middle powers, broadly agreed on the destination but not the route.

India’s 2026 Chairmanship therefore arrives at an unusually consequential moment. As the only major power engaging constructively with the West, Russia, the Global South and the Indo-Pacific simultaneously, India is positioned to do what BRICS has struggled to do for itself: convert declaration into delivery.

From Acronym to Architecture: The Evolution of BRICS

BRICS began as an economic concept in 2001, when Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill coined “BRIC” for Brazil, Russia, India and China as rising growth engines. The idea acquired political weight as these nations found common cause in reforming global governance; the grouping held its first Summit in 2009 and added South Africa in 2010. By 2014, it had matured into an institution-builder, launching the New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) as credible complements to the Bretton Woods system.

A Broader, More Influential Coalition: The 2023-25 expansion, bringing in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, Indonesia and others, was BRICS’s most consequential shift yet, turning a bloc of major emerging economies into a coalition spanning Asia, Africa, Latin America and West Asia. It is now a central voice in debates on governance, sustainable development, climate change, digital transformation and financial reform.

Reform, Not Confrontation: BRICS was never conceived as an anti-Western project; its consistent philosophy has been reform rather than confrontation, greater developing-country participation in global decision-making, deeper South-South cooperation, pragmatic use of national currencies in bilateral trade, and joint action on food security, energy transition and digital inclusion.

“ BRICS should evolve as a platform that enhances strategic and economic resilience without getting into bloc politics. — Maj Gen (Dr) S B Asthana

The Pull Factors: Why the Queue to Join BRICS Keeps Growing

Frustration with an Unreformed Global Order: Rising interest in BRICS membership reflects frustration with existing structures more than ideological alignment. Many developing nations view the UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank and WTO as skewed toward Western powers, slow to reform, and ill-equipped to address food security, technology transfer and equitable growth, a frustration compounded by rising unilateral sanctions. BRICS offers these countries a platform to push for reform without seeking to replace existing institutions.

Strategic Autonomy: Strategic autonomy is an equally strong driver. Middle powers increasingly prefer diversified partnerships over exclusive alignment with any major bloc, and BRICS’s sovereignty-respecting, consensus-based model fits that need, letting members engage beyond Washington or Beijing without formal alliances or ideological conformity, a draw for nations across Africa, Latin America, West Asia and Southeast Asia. The New Development Bank adds a further pull, offering an alternative, if still modest, source of infrastructure financing, while BRICS increasingly functions as a collective voice of the Global South on debt sustainability and climate finance.

India’s Multipolar Balancing Act: The future global order will likely be shaped by interaction among multiple platforms rather than one replacing another. India’s simultaneous engagement with BRICS, the G20, the Quad and the SCO reflects exactly this logic, reinforcing New Delhi’s commitment to strategic autonomy, issue-based partnerships and a multipolar order over rigid bloc politics.

BRICS versus G7: Distinct Models for Global Governance

Although comparisons between BRICS and the G7 are frequent, the two groupings differ fundamentally in concept and structure. The G7 comprises advanced industrial democracies with high cohesion and shared political and economic models, but represents a shrinking share of global population and manufacturing output. BRICS, in contrast, brings together democracies, monarchies and one-party states spanning commodity exporters, manufacturing powers, and both energy producers and consumers, its strength lying in demographic weight, resource endowments and representation of the developing world.

Where the G7 moves swiftly on shared strategic perspectives, BRICS must reconcile a far wider range of national interests before reaching consensus. Rather than competing, the two are likely to coexist, addressing different dimensions of international cooperation, much as India’s own engagement with BRICS, the G20, the Quad and the SCO reflects a preference for multiple, overlapping platforms over rigid bloc politics.

The Fault Lines Within: Diversity as Strength, Divergence as Challenge

The greatest strength of BRICS is also its greatest strategic challenge. Unlike NATO, the European Union or the G7, BRICS is neither a military alliance nor an ideological coalition. It unites nations with disparate political systems, economic systems, regional goals, and strategic agendas. At the same time, building consensus and maintaining institutional cohesiveness are both made more difficult by this variety. All members generally concur that the international system need to become more multipolar, equitable, and representative. However, national agendas frequently differ greatly beyond this shared goal..

The relationship between China and India continues to be the most significant contradiction. The two cooperate extensively within BRICS and the SCO, yet continue to face unresolved boundary disputes, military deployments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and competing visions of Asian leadership. India views BRICS as an instrument to democratise global governance while preserving strategic autonomy; China increasingly regards it as a pillar of an alternative architecture that reduces Western influence. Both support multipolarity, but India advocates a genuinely multipolar Asia, while China’s rise has raised concerns about an emerging hierarchical China centric Asia.

Russia’s priorities, similarly, are shaped by its prolonged confrontation with the West since the Ukraine conflict; Moscow views BRICS as a platform to mitigate sanctions and diversify economic partnerships. India supports a multipolar order but has consistently maintained that BRICS should not become an anti-Western bloc, a distinction that matters because India’s partnerships with the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia remain vital to its growth, technology access and Indo-Pacific security, along with its relations with BRICS countries.

The expansion of BRICS has introduced additional complexities. The admission of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia has widened BRICS’s geopolitical reach but also imported regional rivalries into the grouping: Iran’s long-standing confrontation with the United States sits uneasily alongside the pragmatic balancing pursued by Gulf monarchies, Saudi-Iran competition has sharpened amid the recent war in West Asia, Egypt and Ethiopia continue to differ over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and the UAE and Iran carry their own tensions from the same conflict.

Economic asymmetry constitutes another structural challenge. China accounts for approximately two-thirds of the combined GDP of BRICS, giving it disproportionate economic influence. The group is strengthened by its manufacturing capabilities, financial resources, and technological advancements, but it also raises concerns about institutional imbalance; some members, like Brazil and India, are still wary of any one nation having undue influence over BRICS institutions.  

Divergent viewpoints are further demonstrated by the de-dollarization issue. Due to financial constraints and sanctions, Russia and Iran actively support quickening measures to lessen reliance on the US dollar.  China supports greater use of local currencies as part of the internationalisation of the Renminbi. India, while encouraging bilateral local-currency settlements where commercially viable, is hesitant to support replacing one dominant reserve currency with another or creating unrealistic expectations around a common BRICS currency. Given the absence of fiscal integration, monetary coordination, capital-market convergence and institutional mechanisms comparable to the Eurozone, a common BRICS currency remains economically impractical for the foreseeable future.

Institutionally, BRICS also carries the drag of consensus-based decision-making: it preserves equality among members but slows decisions on sensitive issues. Unlike treaty-based organisations, BRICS lacks a permanent secretariat or legally binding enforcement mechanisms, and policy coherence will grow harder to maintain as membership expands unless institutional reform keeps pace.

These contradictions should not be viewed solely as weaknesses. BRICS derives much of its legitimacy precisely because it accommodates political diversity rather than ideological uniformity. Nevertheless, if internal differences begin to outweigh shared interests, institutional effectiveness could gradually erode, which is why India’s Chairmanship assumes particular importance in steering BRICS toward practical cooperation based on consensus rather than ideological alignment.

“ These contradictions are not weaknesses alone — BRICS derives much of its legitimacy precisely because it accommodates political diversity rather than ideological uniformity. — Maj Gen (Dr) S B Asthana

Can BRICS Present a United Front Against Growing Economic Coercion?

With the US Senate clearing legislation authorising the President to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries purchasing Russian oil, a measure that would hit several BRICS economies, the question of whether BRICS can respond collectively to economic coercion deserves serious deliberation. The proposition is strategically attractive but institutionally challenging: BRICS’s aggregate economic weight, considerable as it is, has proved difficult to translate into coordinated policy, given how widely members differ in economic structure and strategic priority.

Recent trade frictions illustrate these challenges. Several BRICS members have faced higher tariffs, sanctions or export restrictions from the United States and its partners, albeit for different reasons. China continues to face extensive technology restrictions and elevated tariffs; Russia remains subject to unprecedented financial sanctions; Iran has long experienced comprehensive economic sanctions; Brazil has periodically confronted tariff disputes; and India too has faced rising trade pressure, with tariffs as high as Brazil’s.

At present, intra-BRICS merchandise trade is estimated at around US $700-800 billion annually, whereas the collective trade of BRICS members with the United States and the European Union exceeds US $5 trillion. This reality limits the scope for any immediate collective economic retaliation, since most BRICS economies remain deeply integrated with Western markets, technologies and financial systems, making confrontation neither desirable nor economically sustainable.

Nevertheless, excessive reliance on the existing Western-dominated financial architecture has become an area of growing concern. Ironically, if protectionism and secondary sanctions continue to intensify, external pressure could achieve what internal diplomacy has thus far struggled to accomplish: greater strategic cohesion within BRICS. Should punitive measures increasingly target multiple BRICS economies simultaneously, incentives for policy coordination, financial cooperation and supply-chain integration are likely to grow substantially. The inescapable lesson for BRICS countries is that intra-BRICS trade must grow exponentially if the grouping is to withstand economic coercion by an economic hegemon.

For India, however, the objective should remain clear: BRICS should evolve as a platform that enhances strategic and economic resilience without getting into bloc politics. It should complement, rather than replace, existing global institutions while encouraging a more equitable and diversified international economic architecture.

India’s 2026 BRICS Summit: Theme and Priorities

Image Courtesy Ministry of External Affairs, India.

Under India’s Chairmanship, the 2026 BRICS Summit will be guided by the overarching theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability,” which embodies a people-centric and humanity-first approach as articulated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister at the 2025 Rio Summit.

• Resilience: Enhancing economic, social and institutional resilience to address global uncertainties, supply-chain disruptions, public health challenges and climate-related risks.
• Innovation: Leveraging cutting-edge and emerging technologies, including digital public infrastructure, financial technology, artificial intelligence and knowledge exchange, to facilitate efficient service delivery and sustainable, future-ready growth.
• Cooperation: Strengthening multilateral collaboration among BRICS members through improved policy coordination, development finance, trade facilitation, reform of global institutional governance, and partnerships centred on people and inclusive development.
• Sustainability: Accelerating joint action on climate change mitigation, green finance, energy transition and sustainable development, in alignment with national and global priorities.

2026 BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Outcomes Set the Agenda

The 2026 BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which preceded the Summit, reiterated the group’s unwavering dedication to multilateralism, sovereign equality, sustainable development, and the transformation of global governance structures. Ministers reiterated support for a more representative United Nations, including comprehensive Security Council reform, while emphasising the need to strengthen the voice of developing countries within international financial institutions.

A significant outcome was broad consensus on enhancing cooperation in trade facilitation, digital public infrastructure, resilient supply chains, artificial intelligence governance, climate finance, food security, health resilience and disaster management, reflecting India’s effort to shift BRICS discussions from geopolitical rhetoric toward practical developmental cooperation.

Ministers also endorsed continued promotion of national currencies in mutually agreed trade settlements while avoiding unrealistic commitments on a common BRICS currency, reflecting India’s preference for gradual, market-driven financial innovation over politically driven experimentation. Another achievement was the reaffirmation of cooperation against terrorism in all forms, including terror financing, radicalisation and the misuse of emerging technologies by terrorist organisations.

The meeting also highlighted the importance of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), an area where India enjoys considerable international credibility through initiatives such as Aadhaar, UPI and Digital Public Goods; by placing digital inclusion alongside sustainable development, India successfully broadened the BRICS agenda beyond traditional economic cooperation. Although differences persisted on certain geopolitical issues, including Ukraine and West Asia, the ministers avoided letting these disagreements overshadow the broader developmental agenda.

What BRICS Members Expect from India

India’s presidency comes at a time when expectations from New Delhi are unusually high, as it is widely regarded as the most credible bridge between developed and developing economies. Different members, however, expect different outcomes.

Russia expects India to sustain BRICS’s strategic relevance despite Western pressure, expand national-currency settlements and strengthen energy cooperation. China expects India to facilitate institutional expansion and financial cooperation without letting bilateral strategic competition dominate the agenda, while recognising that India’s participation lends the grouping legitimacy and balance.

Brazil and South Africa expect India to champion UN Security Council reform, expand South-South cooperation, improve access to development finance and strengthen collaboration in agriculture, health, food security and climate adaptation. The newer members from West Asia and Africa seek stronger investment flows, digital infrastructure, technology partnerships, resilient supply chains and greater representation within global governance institutions.

Across the grouping, India is expected to provide consensus-driven leadership rather than ideological direction. Unlike any other major power, India enjoys credibility across competing geopolitical camps, enabling it to function as an honest broker capable of reconciling diverse interests while preserving the principle of strategic autonomy.

Washington’s Unease, and What It Expects from India

Washington’s unease with BRICS stems not from its existence but from its potential to erode Western dominance in global governance and finance, through the New Development Bank as a parallel institution, growing de-dollarisation efforts, and China’s expanding influence within the grouping. Notwithstanding President Trump’s rhetoric against BRICS, the bloc is not anti-American; members like India retain deep Western ties, and Washington stands to gain more from engaging constructively than from treating BRICS purely as a rival bloc.

The US views India as an Indo-Pacific partner despite certain inconvenient actions against India, and expects it to keep BRICS a constructive economic forum rather than an anti-Western coalition, moderating de-dollarisation pushes and deepening ties through the Quad and the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership. India must strike a balance between these demands and its own strategic independence by supporting Global South-oriented changes while interacting with Washington and guiding BRICS toward cooperative multipolarity as opposed to ideological alignment against any power.

India’s Strategic Opportunity: From Chair to Architect

India’s presidency arrives at a defining moment in BRICS’s evolution. As the grouping grows in membership and ambition, it risks becoming either an influential institution of the Global South or an unwieldy forum pulled apart by competing national agendas, a challenge sharpened by the fact that several members are regional rivals amid current global turbulence. India’s diplomatic objective should be to steer BRICS toward becoming a pragmatic platform for cooperative multipolarity, not an ideological coalition against any particular power.

Few countries are as well placed to provide that leadership. India’s engagement spans virtually every major grouping, BRICS, G20, Quad, SCO, BIMSTEC and IORA, giving New Delhi a credibility that lets it bridge developed and developing countries, East and West, and competing strategic blocs alike.

The Chairmanship should prioritise institution-building over declaratory politics: expanding cooperation in digital public infrastructure, resilient supply chains, health security, disaster response, climate adaptation, critical minerals, clean energy and maritime connectivity would generate tangible benefits for members while strengthening BRICS’s institutional credibility. Equally important is preserving the strategic autonomy that has historically defined India’s foreign policy, resisting attempts to turn BRICS into an explicitly anti-Western platform while backing legitimate reform of global governance.

The success of India’s Chairmanship will ultimately be measured not by the length of summit declarations, but by whether BRICS emerges as a responsible pillar of the multipolar order, one that reforms and strengthens global governance rather than deepening its fragmentation.

“The goal is neither confrontation with existing institutions nor their replacement — BRICS should be non-Western, but not anti-Western.” — Maj Gen (Dr) S B Asthana

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BRICS at 20 is at a strategic crossroads.

◆ BRICS has evolved from an economic acronym into a major platform of the Global South.

◆ Expansion has increased its demographic, economic and geopolitical weight—but also its internal contradictions.

◆ China’s economic dominance, India-China rivalry and differing approaches to de-dollarisation remain major fault lines.

◆ BRICS cannot realistically replace Western markets or institutions in the near term.

◆ India’s 2026 Chairmanship provides an opportunity to shift BRICS from declaratory diplomacy towards practical cooperation.

◆ Members expect India to act as a consensus-builder and bridge between competing geopolitical camps.

◆ Washington expects India to prevent BRICS from becoming an explicitly anti-Western coalition.

◆ India’s strategic objective should therefore be cooperative multipolarity—not bloc confrontation.

◆ The ultimate test will be whether BRICS delivers measurable outcomes in trade, finance, technology, supply-chain resilience, climate, health and digital cooperation.

Conclusion

Twenty years after its inception, BRICS stands at a genuine strategic crossroads. It has grown from an investment acronym into one of the most consequential platforms representing the Global South, not because the West has declined, but because the demand for a more representative international order has grown. Demographic weight and economic scale, however, cannot by themselves deliver strategic influence; that depends on coherence of purpose, practical cooperation, and the ability to reconcile competing national interests.

For BRICS to remain relevant, it must move from declaratory diplomacy to measurable outcomes. The immediate priority is to deepen intra-BRICS trade, still modest against members’ trade with the developed world, by expanding local-currency settlements where commercially viable, building interoperable digital payment systems, strengthening the New Development Bank, and investing jointly in supply-chain resilience and emerging technologies.

India’s Chairmanship offers a rare opportunity to drive that transition, even amid considerable geopolitical turbulence. New Delhi is perhaps the only major power that holds strategic partnerships with the United States and Europe, longstanding ties with Russia, growing engagement with Africa and West Asia, and active membership across BRICS, the G20, the Quad and the SCO. That position lets India shape BRICS not as an anti-Western coalition but as a responsible pillar of an emerging multipolar order, provided New Delhi keeps discipline around the Summit’s declared themes and picks up only the issues of common good.

BRICS is not an end in itself, for India or for the Global South. The goal is neither confrontation with existing institutions nor their replacement, but a platform that is non-Western, not anti-Western, one that makes global governance more inclusive, representative and resilient. If India can build consensus around this vision, its 2026 Chairmanship may be remembered as the moment BRICS matured from a political forum into an institution capable of contributing meaningfully to global stability and cooperative multipolarity, a challenging role, but one squarely within India’s reach.

About the Author Major General (Dr) S B Asthana, SM, VSM (Retd) is a veteran Infantry General, former Director General of Infantry, Indian Army, and former Director at the United Service Institution of India (USI), the country’s oldest strategic think tank. A globally recognised strategic and military analyst with over 600 published articles and extensive television commentary with 5000+ discussions globally, his work focuses on geopolitics, multipolarity and India’s strategic choices. The views expressed are personal views of the author who retains the copyright over the paper. asthanawrites.org  |  linkedin.com/in/shashi-asthana-4b3801a6  |  YouTube: @GenAsthanaAnalyses