China-India

The international environment has deteriorated rapidly. The Russia-Ukraine war continues; the US-Israel-Iran confrontation has transformed West Asian security and energy calculations; the threat of punitive US tariffs against countries purchasing Russian energy directly affects major BRICS economies; and the India-China relationship is simultaneously showing cautious signs of stabilisation after years of tension.

The forthcoming Modi-Putin meeting adds another important dimension. The Russian President is expected in New Delhi ahead of the Summit, with defence, energy, trade and technology among the issues attracting attention. The meeting comes at a time when India is under pressure over its continued engagement with Russian energy while simultaneously seeking to preserve its wider strategic partnerships.

Iran will also enter the BRICS discussion with expectations that India will go beyond general expressions of concern and support a stronger collective response to the US-Israeli military campaign. Tehran has already urged BRICS members to explicitly condemn what it describes as US-Israeli aggression.

Yet this is precisely where India's balancing challenge becomes acute. The BRICS table also includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose security calculations have been profoundly affected by the conflict and by Iranian attacks on Gulf states and shipping. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have strongly condemned Iranian attacks and asserted their right to defend their sovereignty and security.

Thus, unlike a conventional alliance, BRICS cannot simply adopt one member's geopolitical narrative. The same organisation contains countries seeking condemnation of US-Israeli action, countries directly exposed to Iranian military action, Russia seeking relief from Western pressure, China pursuing a larger role in an emerging alternative architecture, and India seeking strategic autonomy without bloc confrontation.

The SCO Summit has already provided India with a useful diplomatic template. Its handling of the Iran crisis demonstrated that a diverse grouping can register opposition to military action and reaffirm multipolarity while leaving room for individual members to maintain their own strategic relationships. The BRICS challenge, however, is more complex because its expanded membership has imported sharper regional and geopolitical contradictions.

The following analysis examines whether India's calibrated activism can convert this turbulence into greater BRICS cohesion—or whether the very forces that have increased BRICS's geopolitical importance will expose its internal limits.

The test at Bharat Mandapam is therefore larger than another summit declaration. It is a test of whether India can help BRICS become what it should be: non-Western, but not anti-Western; strategically autonomous, but not strategically confrontational; and increasingly capable of converting the aspirations of the Global South into practical institutional outcomes.